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Copyright hP 

c 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









WILD 



By 

GORDON YOUNG 


Author of Savages, Etc. 


m 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 





Copyright 1920 
The Ridgway Company 



Printed in the United States o/ America 


OCT 17 1921 


PBE8S OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



©CI.A624827 


Arthur Sullivant Hoffman 
A good friend, a bold and generous editor 



CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I Three Thieves and Lady Betty ...» i 
II A Bottle of Gin — Oh-Ho! 17 

III The Woman, Black-Robed and Vivid • m 36 

IV The Wrong Man Stumbles Hellward * „ 61 

V To a M!ermaid the Wage of Silence » , » 86 

VI Boilings and BubblinGs at Dakaru « « s 103 

VII Fate, the Hussy, Is Boldly Cheated , , . 122 

VIII Troubles, Troubles Everywhere 1 » , „ . 162 

IX Traditions Out of Sicily 193 

X A Drunken Night and at Dawn a Fight • 211 
XI Red Sins and Words Black as Curses . . 237 


XII Audacity Is Luck — ! ***,««•, 256 

XIII A Rope's End Falls, Swish— -Whir l . „ . 275 

XIV Fever, Rum and a Bitter Tale « „ « « , 294 


XV The Woman Who Hated Men Speaks of Love 311 
XVI Death Gallops by with Hands Outstretched 324 

XVII Rest— Rest for the Wayward and Pas- 
sion-Worn • «.»«««« « . 337 



I 


[ 


WILD BLOOD 





WILD BLOOD 

CHAPTER I 

THREE THIEVES AND LADY BETTY 

HTWO men were in the shanty bar, sitting at a rough 
board table; and I was the third. We were on 
benches under a corrugated-iron roof and a bottle of 
gin was before us. We leaned heavily, elbows to table. 

The sun was hot and the roof was like a baker’s door. 
Flies buzzed about with fretful persistence. 

A dozen men slouched at the bar or dozed along the 
benches. Some were heavily booted, wearing coarse blue 
or red shirts, and were hairy of throat. Many of them 
were bearded. When they paid for drinks they would 
pull little chamois-skin bags from under armpits or from 
wide-pocketed belts. 

These men were from the diggings. They lay in 
port waiting for the boat, under the delusion that they 
could get drunker in Melbourne than at Turkee. It 
takes experience and some philosophy to convince a man 
that after a few glasses it makes no difference whether 
he is under polished tables or rough benches. 

A discouraged squatter was dolefully pouring out a 
tale of drought and myalls to a miner who stood and 


I 


2 


WILD BLOOD 


dozed uneasily against the board counter. Two or three 
sailors, deserters no doubt, snored on the narrow benches. 

A pair of troopers, elbow to elbow, paused in passing 
and filled the doorway. They said nothing, but stared 
with a certain detached authoritative insolence, as men 
perhaps have the right to do when they know themselves 
well hated, feared; yet dare to ride alone, and often do 
not come back. 

They would not have been far in the wrong had they 
grabbed any man there, and haled him out, though they 
might have guessed wrong in naming the charge, for 
crime was very protean in Australia. But judges 
frowned at troopers who leaned on guesswork ; so many 
a man went impudently free through being tight-lipped. 

My lips were never closed, except about the neck of a 
bottle. I mentioned to my companions how fortunate, 
then, that my record was without stain. 

Each of them looked at me: the somber Englishman 
Iwith the slow, steady gaze of a man who wonders a little, 
but doesn’t understand nor greatly care ; the other man, 
not big but deep-chested and muscled like a python, had 
a flicker of amusement in his narrow gray eyes. He was 
sparing of words, tight-lipped and sober; always sober. 

The troopers, thumbs in belts, turned smartly on 
their heels and walked away. Perhaps they were looking 
for some one ; or maybe they paused to allow us to look 
at them. Understand me: I would not sneer at an 
Australian trooper; not even behind his back; not even 
with three thousand miles between us; not though he 
were dead and damned, like most of the men of those 
days. 

I pulled the bottle closer to my elbow and peered at 
the low-water mark. The sweet-bitter kiss of glass lips 


WILD BLOOD 


3 


tingled my blood. Let those two men go on with their 
talk. One way or the other, or whatever they did, was 
nothing for me to worry about. 

Though whatever they did would affect me quite as 
much as themselves. I was not much more than a young 
fellow. And even then I had made the choice of many 
crossroads; and I always felt that one was as good as 
another. 

If we stole a ship and went north with this strange 
Englishman, who evidently had a quest that he was not 
telling to us — for I thought he lied like a man who knows 
what he wants — why, then there would be queer things 
happen, and novelty is pleasure. If we stayed where we 
were, something would happen. It always did. I never 
stayed where I was for a length of time. I never liked 
many things to happen in the same place. 

The tall, gaunt Englishman with the slender feet and 
the long nose and the black beard — the very black 
beard — did not know to whom he was talking. But he 
was in earnest. 

In those days you took a man as you found him. It 
was impertinent to ask for credentials. He was a 
reserved, self-possessed, grim sort of a person, this 
Englishman — with heavy black brows and deep black 
eyes. Davenant his name, he said. 

Had he known to whom he was talking he might have 
gone excitedly after the troopers; and shared various 
rewards with them. Perhaps not. 

He could have shouted any one of my two or three 
names at all the troopers from Carpentaria to Melbourne. 
I was no mainland loafer. In the islands northward, in 
some of them, I was a little better known. Not much 
though, for mine was an exceedingly modest renown. 


4 


WILD BLOOD 


Missionaries in particular knew me, by repute when not 
so favored personally; and were most unchristian in 
their attitude. It wasn’t my fault if their bishop hadn’t 
known whisky was in his ginger ale. 

Ah, but he made a grand speech ; and right there and 
then gave the native girls permission to dance — right 
there and then. A row of white, pious, horrified faces 
were turned to him, but his eyes were perhaps a little 
blurred. Though it seemed to me that he did enjoy the 
siva. I did. So it was for one thing and another, I was 
remembered in one place and another. One doesn’t loaf 
around in the South Seas for a dozen years without 
getting acquainted. 

But the man at my side — I could have had a thousand 
pounds, a good round sum for a shifting idler, by merely 
whispering his name into a trooper’s ear. Perhaps a 
rounder, fuller sum than that. 

Legends were around that name. It was known over 
the Seven Seas and in most of their ports. Dead or alive, 
said the British government ; and when the British gov- 
ernment says that, this earth becomes a very small spot to 
dodge about on. Another European government wanted 
him dead. And he was supposed to be. 

A fat, bearded scientist who spoke English thickly, 
on his way to the Solomons to study anthropogeny and 
head-drying, had confided with me, a year before, that 
he was to make demands upon the natives, and barter 
generously, for white men’s heads, in the hope that this 
fellow’s would be among them. Would I go along and 
identify the head ? 

My friend was known to have been wrecked and 
thought to have been killed on the eastern tip of Guadal- 
canal The naval officers of three countries had orders 


WILD BLOOD 


5 


to take him, wherever found, as they would any pirate. 
One may write an order with a goose-quill and the 
merest drop of ink. But he knew reefs and atolls that 
were not on the map; he knew of anchorage and harbor 
that were not mentioned in the sailing directions, and 
the natives said that with his own breath he could make 
canvas pull. 

But a German gunboat had shelled his little schooner, 
driven him ashore, and came on to find it burning. As 
usual, he had powder and dynamite on board. Even 
wrecked, he was too much for them. He disappeared 
into the bush. 

German sailors had gone in after him and found 
cannibals. And on the rafters of some gamal house near 
that place a half dozen German heads are yet grinning 
under the softening veils of dust — unless the German 
scientist bid high enough to have them brought to him. 
In that vicinity white men’s heads are treasures to be 
desired above pearls and rubies. Yet this outlaw of the 
sea and larjd came through. 

Those were stem, fierce, vivid days. Looking 
backward one can see so much better than when merely 
looking around. But what was then the present was so 
much more tame than what had gone before that even 
we looked grudgingly behind us to “the good old days,” 
which were even more inhuman and cruel than the early 
seventies. 

Adventurers came from the ends of the earth. They 
had been coming for a century, for centuries. Spaniards 
and French and Portuguese, English and Yankee, Arab 
and Chinaman, all came. Out of England the 
Scarborough, the Neptune, the Success had brought them 


6 


WILD BLOOD 


willy-nilly, in chains. Many a good citizen of the land 
had a father with “M” burned in his palm. 

The good citizens later rose and burned, properly, the 
convict records ; or such as they could get their torches 
to. It is hard to tell convict blood without a birth certifi- 
cate; especially in Australia, whither murderers and 
those who stole loaves off a London cart-tail, or snared a 
rabbit under the nose of milord’s gamekeeper, or wrote a 
pamphlet telling some truths about the king’s rule were 
despatched in equally heavy chains. Also branded, 
burned and lashed; turned over as slaves to freemen; 
bullied, cheated and tormented ; but mostly beaten. 

Frequently they escaped, and ranged the bush, more 
ferocious than the cannibal blacks, the myalls, whom 
they often joined. Missionaries had begun coming with 
Bibles and bundles of trousers and petticoats, all for the 
natives, at about the same time as these convict ships 
from Christian lands. 


For a half-century bold, hard seamen from New 
Bedford and Salem had been dragging whales out of 
the South Seas — and all the other seas on the globe — 
and putting them into casks, that civilized people might 
have oil for lamps. Mutineers and deserters had left foot- 
prints on every beach. The Bounty was not the only 
ship that set her officers adrift; seamen hoping these 
officers would die, but without the courage to kill them. 

Respect for officers was beaten in with the cat and 
the rope’s end, and strangely few were murdered for it. 
But the lure of the purple-plumaged islands and brown 
maids was strong, and deserters were many. 

Some time in the early fifties gold was found and the 
four winds brought a headlong rush of men, and women 


WILD BLOOD 


7 


of a kind ; and a few of the other kind. The whole face 
of Australia was scratched and gouged. 

From one digging to another men scampered, 
drinking, gambling, quarreling, fighting, robbing, work- 
ing, saving, dreaming, planning — but ready to pause at 
any time to chase the chinks. Yellow men were harried 
out of the camps, killed, or driven into a vicarious 
massacre under the clubs of the myalls. 

After the vanguard, always the herder and the 
plowman. Herders loosened countless droves of cattle, 
and billows upon billows of sheep moved over the hills. 
Enormous plantations were laid out; from Tahiti to 
Queensland ships went out among the more savage 
islands to “recruit” blacks with beads, gin or manacles. 

Seamen hunted natives, themselves headhunters, and 
dragged them off to a merciless slavery euphemistically 
termed “contract labor.” Sometimes the savages cut 
out the blackbirder — and wore the manacles for earrings. 

Traders too went to gather whatever could be carried 
off, from ancient weapons to copra. Factories sprang 
up and the dried coconut went forth to cleanse the world 
with soft-scented soap. It was quite common for traders 
to be butchered and eaten. It is not unheard of now. 
On the sea, under one guise and another, captains were 
pirates ; and pearlers put out in luggers to scrape oysters 
from their beds, give orient gems to the ears and necks of 
distant ladies and buttons to trousers and coats of 
gentlemen. Lumbermen went into perfumed islands, 
where perhaps the Phoenicians had been before them — 
for where else is sandalwood to be found? — and often 
under streams of arrows, poisoned, cut down forests that 
the silks and linen of dainty women from Japan to 
London might be sweetly scented. 


8 


WILD BLOOD 


Natives rose in brief, futile fights and butchered, 
with horrible ferocity, whom they could overnight. In 
three tongues the chancelleries of Europe quarreled over 
distant rights. And French convicts continued to be sent 
to New Caledonia. 

From the days of Wallis and Cook to this very hour, 
under the guidance of another Cook, white men came and 
ate of the lotus and drowsed dreamily, head in the lap of 
a brown girl, remembering indifferently through a 
soothing stupor that some place in the world there was 
something rather of a nuisance called Civilization. 

No man gets rich without wanting other men to 
obey the laws; and Civilization is as irresistible as if it 
were a plague. So the man who called himself Douglas 
Moore was an outlaw, on sea and land. 

The Englishman, Davenant, thought that he was the 
interested party. He thought that he had, more or less 
by accident, stumbled on to a navigator. It was amusing 
to hear him wrestling with Moore’s conscience explaining 
why it would be really honest to take out the Lady Betty, 
to let her drift on the early tide, spread sail and scamper 
off. 

The trouble was, though Moore did not say so in the 
presence of the Englishman, that the Lady Betty was 
encrusted with barnacles and needed some work on her 
bottom. There she lay, with three broken-down care- 
takers playing cribbage on board. They represented 
three important creditors, and a half dozen little ones as 
well. 

Who owned her? After she had been refitted and 
provisioned there arose a conflict of ownership. Who 
was to pay the bills? Davenant asserted that he owned 
her, and showed papers and made affidavits. He had 


WILD BLOOD 


bought her from a Yankee captain who was to remain 
the skipper. 

But the Yankee had gone mysteriously. In fact he 
had gone before collecting the entire purchase price. He 
had gone about the same time that the A. B. A. Shipping 
Company of Sydney had sent one of its men down to get 
and hold the Lady Betty. She belonged to the A. B. A. 

The Yankee had no right to sell her. It was, the A. 
B. A. intimated, characteristic of Yankees to sell things 
they had no right to. 

She was not the Lady Betty anyway. She was the 
O. P. Jones, in honor of one of the founders of the 
company. 

Scratch out the Lady Betty and, they said, the trace 
of O. P. Jones would be visible. But it wasn’t. Then 
they said Yankees were damn clever, but she was the 
O . P. Jones anyway. 

Davenant wanted to get away. He was going after 
pearls — he said. He knew of an atoll where there were 
pearls, a virgin bed. He could not afford to stand around 
on his toes waiting for the A. B. A. to scratch off all the 
fresh paint in order to find O. P. Jones. He wanted to 
get away, and he had run across Douglas Moore. 

Douglas Moore had more than one name. And he had 
almost everything else that went to make a man hard to 
catch and harder to hold. He knew all about Davenant’s 
troubles over the Lady Betty and the dispute as to her 
sex. 

He had inquired about him and learned nothing ex- 
cept that he had a daughter in Melbourne lonesomely 
awaiting the outcome of the difficulties her father — that 
is, he was supposed to be her father — was in. So when 


WILD BLOOD 


io 

Davenant sought out Douglas Moore he was merely 
taking an artful bait that had been dropped in his way. 

Moore kept his own counsel. He had only Burly 
Ben Hawkins and me to confide in. 

However, I had a suspicion that he was thinking about 
taking out the Lady Betty anyway — with or without 
Davenant. But just at present he seemed indifferent. 
For one thing he wanted about twice as much money as 
the Englishman was willing to offer. 

“When the voyage is over I shall make you a present 
of the ship/' Davenant had said. Few things could be 
more enticing than that to some men. 

“And let the A. B. A. libel her the first time she 
shows up in a port,” said the man who called himself 
Moore. “And me be hanged for piracy !” 

He knew very well that at most the Lady Betty would 
add only an inch or two to the height of his gallows. But 
there is likely to be something wrong with a voyage when 
the owner so easily promises to give over the ship. 
Precious lot of pearls one would have to scoop up to pay 
for a ninety-ton brig that had nothing the matter with 
her but barnacles and a little rib or two that might spring 
a leak if hard hit. 

But what that bearded Englishman didn’t realize was 
that there was likely to be something even more wrong 
with a skipper who would take out a ship on the sort of 
proposition that was offered. 

Moore asked to see the Englishman’s map, and the 
Englishman pulled out a piece of rough brown paper 
with a few tracings on it, no names, but a cross at about 
164 west and 12 below. Moore asked if it wasn’t a copy 
from an Admiralty map, and Davenant was much 
impressed. 


[WILD BLOOD 


Ilr 

“You really know where you want to go?” asked 
Moore. He was thin-lipped and hard-faced, and he did 
not make much noise when he talked — not even when the 
wind was up and thunder boomed. 

“I do,” said Davenant firmly. 

He nodded his head two or three times. Moore 
watched him. I said nothing. But I watched Moore. 

“Then it is not the atoll, but Dakaru you want !” 

Davenant sat up with a jerk. The English aren’t a 
people to jump up and wave their arms. No. When 
a lean Englishman, one of the lanky, long, thin-nosed 
type, bats an eyelid twice in three seconds, he is excited. 

Davenant did not bat an eyelid at all. He simply 
stared at Moore for about a half-minute. Which meant 
that he was paralyzed. 

I tipped the square-face over my glass. But a few 
drops lazily trickled out; just a flavor. So I quietly 
reached over and took Moore’s brimming glass, and left 
mine before him. He would never know. 

“How, may I ask,” said Davenant slowly, calmly, “do 
you surmise that?” 

I paid the man a quiet compliment at the back of my 
brain, and began to think he had a well-tempered bit of 
steel for a backbone. He was no ordinary man. One 
would guess that at a glance. 

He was one of those fellows that could be thrown on 
to a beach in a pair of drawers and still give the impres- 
sion of having come from a reception to my lord mayor. 
And he used words as if he knew what they meant and 
was particular. 

Said Moore : “That’s the only spot within the radius 
of a thousand miles, or nearly that, where’s a real planta- 


12 t WILD BLOOD 

tion. Grahame’s a fierce fellow, and skippers give him a 
wide berth.” 

“But there are — are pearls,” Davenant insisted 
nervously. 

“There is an atoll two points east and sixty miles 
south, of this reckoning,” Moore said, taking the paper. 
“There's bound to be good shell. Right temperature. 
Grahame owns it. But how can you or I sell shell out 
of the Lady Betty's hold? She'll be seized as soon as 
she sticks her stem into port. Turn the shell over to a 
pearler and he’ll steal it.” 

“What proposition can I make you ?” asked Davenant, 
a little more impressed than he ever thought of being by 
a stray sailor. 

Moore laid it down briefly. He would agree to get 
Davenant to Dakaru — the native name of the island, 
since changed to honor some dead man who is supposed 
to have discovered it — in six months; but he must have 
full and complete charge and no questions asked in the 
meantime. Also twelve hundred pounds, cash, on board 
the Lady Betty . 

“You are probably aware that it may be necessary to 
use — ah — force,” said Davenant watchfully. 

Moore's thin lips twisted a little. He nodded. 

“Miscalculations would be embarrassing to me,” said 
Davenant. 

Moore said, “No doubt.” 

“I dislike the delay, though time is not the great 
factor with me.” 

Moore said nothing. He had done his talking — and 
never did very much. This was the third or fourth con- 
versation. 


l WILD BLOOD 13 

“It may take some time for me to obtain that amount 
— in cash.” 

Davenaht had just a trifle hesitancy, naturally. He 
really had no surety that he would get full service for his 
money. But he was a man in earnest. Who dices with 
the devil must fling gold to the table. 

At the first meeting Davenant had intimated that he 
wanted references. Moore told him they were the easiest 
of things to furnish — that there were plenty of people 
round about who would write them out, so much per 
word. 

Davenant took it silently, unsmilingly. Perhaps he 
was a judge of men. I wondered. 

“Six months,” said Davenant, a fresh suspicion 
coming to him. “You intend to use the ship for some 
enterprise of your own?” 

“No. I’m after leeway. I keep agreements. There’s 
a crew to get. A proper night to wait for. Proper beach 
to find and scrape her. Supplies to be had that you 
haven’t. Takes time. 

“I’ll raise Dakaru in one hundred-eighty days, or 
before. But no questions asked or answered. That’s 
final.” 

He had a way of conveying finality that was much 
more effective than words sound. Every move he made, 
every word he said, was decisive. He was tense, always 
tense ; and never restless. His voice was never loud but 
his words snapped. There was no hesitancy about him. 

“I agree,” said Davenant after a pause. 

Moore nodded. 

“I shall give you the money as soon as I can arrange 
for it.” 

“No. Give it to me as I need it.” 


14 


WILD BLOOD 


Another surprise for Mr. Davenant. Was the man 
a subtler rogue than he thought or no rogue at all ? The 
question looked out of his eyes. But one didn’t question 
Douglas Moore; not even when one didn’t know who 
he was. That is, one didn’t ask him personal questions ; 
though Davenant after a little nervous silence said some- 
thing about hoping that Grahame was not a friend. 

Moore might have said many things, and each of them 
have been the truth. He might have rounded out some 
full curses and launched them on Grahame’s head with 
the true eloquence of my friend, Ben Hawkins, when 
wrath was on him. He might have briefly told a short 
story, and how a knife at thirty feet had gone from his 
hand to search for Grahame’s heart. 

But perhaps he would not have mentioned that he 
was glad the knife had not found it. Or maybe he wasn’t 
glad. I don’t know. Some people said Douglas Moore 
was crazy: so tensely quiet, always — until he unleashed 
himself. Then he went headlong. No reserve. No 
caution. No — I was about to say no mercy. 

Legend had it that he hated white men. That he was 
a renegade. Anyway he hated Grahame — or had reason 
to. But all that he did say was, abruptly, directly, that 
Grahame was not a friend; and Davenant had no way 
of knowing that Grahame was an enemy. 

“Then it is settled,” Davenant remarked a little 
uneasily. 

I felt that he wanted some papers signed, some 
witnesses to swear, some sort of solemnity to give the 
agreement a kind of culmination. He had, I reflected, 
come from civilized countries where an agreement was 
not likely to be observed to the letter unless it was 
riveted by lawyers. A strange man’s mere word seemed 


.WILD BLOOD 


15 


such a stupid thing to depend on; no more binding than 
a dead man’s word. 

And this contract was important to Davenant. He 
showed it even by his repression. He had about him a 
manner of well-bred awkwardness. He was dealing with 
things of which he knew nothing. Maybe the ease with 
which he had been fleeced by the Yankee skipper showed 
him how helpless he really was ; but he was determined. 

Perhaps this black-bearded Englishman wasn’t help- 
less at all, but had to gamble at times, and risk a loss. 
One someway doesn’t expect an Englishman to be black- 
bearded or to appear as Davenant did. But he was 
English — born so, anyway. 

"Yes,” said Moore. "Settled.” 

Davenant stood up, hesitated, looked toward the door 
and again at Moore, and seemed about to speak. He was 
tall and thin and erect in the shoulders. He stood not 
knowing exactly what to do ; a glance fell on the empty 
bottle. 

For a moment I thought he was going to ask us to 
pledge a toast of some kind ; it would have been a grim 
sort of a toast if the truth were in it. One could see that. 
I am sure' he felt that something, something definite, 
perhaps a little dramatic, ought to be done. 

But he said, "Good afternoon” almost casually and 
walked off. 

Douglas Moore sat motionless, his forearms spread 
on the table. His eyes set at nothing; his thin lips tight 
and straight. The muscles at the back of his jaw bulged ; 
his teeth were set hard. 

I drummed softly with the bottoms of two glasses, 
and in a sort of rhythmic monotone said : 

"And now the devil is telling ’em to stir the fire and 


i6 


WILD BLOOD 


get out the biggest pot. There’ll be soup o’ dead men’s 
bones, and blood splashed to the moon. . . .” 

And I kept one eye cocked on Douglas Moore. 
Sometimes he seemed to listen to my nonsense as if it 
were a little pleasing, for when I was the better for a 
tumbler or two of gin I had the world in my pocket and 
my lips were restless. Sometimes he did not even hear 
me, did not hear even Hawkins and me together. 

“Get me a crew,” he said abruptly. 

With that he stood up, paused, picked the gin-bottle 
from the table and, tossing it to the dirt floor, went to the 
bar. He spoke to the red-faced barman and went out. 

“Get me a crew,” he had said. 

That was the worst of him. He did unexpected 
things — taking it for granted that I could do things he 
wanted, as he wanted. I did not like to be uneasy about 
doing anything right. 

The barman waddled to the table and clapped down 
a square-face ; gruntingly stooped over and picked up the 
empty bottle and went back to his domain behind the 
bar of rough boards with only figured calico draped in 
front of them. 

The discouraged squatter was still weaving his 
troubles into an epic of the immigrant’s travail for the 
drowsy miner. The sailors snored unrestfully on their 
splintery couches. I eyed my virgin bottle: inspiration 
is always at the bottom of a square-face. 

But I would be generous. I would drink it in the 
presence of Burly Ben Hawkins. He was a good friend. 


CHAPTER II 


A BOTTLE OF GIN — OH-HO! 

T FOUND Ben Hawkins with his back against a gum- 
* stump, his legs spread before him, his hands folded 
across his belly. His head was bent forward as if in 
solemn contemplation of that imposing region inhabited 
by his stomach. But his eyes were shut. 

Hawkins was a prodigious man. In weight he was 
elephantine ; in appetite a python ; in soporific tenacity 
he could have subbed for one of the Seven Sleepers. A 
wicked and slothful creature, who would eat and drink 
everything in sight if he wasn't watched. 

He smoked an enormous pipe and other people's 
tobacco. His cheeks drooped; his abdomen bulged so 
overshadowingly that it was impossible for him to 
scratch his left knee with his right hand; and he was 
nearly as broad as he was tall. 

Sometimes he combed his hair, but what was the 
use ? It was curly. Occasionally he coaxed me to shave 
him because more than a four days' growth of beard 
made his face itch. Usually his face was thickly stubbed 
with short black hairs. 

His voice was hoarse and subterranean. And I loved 
him as my brother from the first hour we met. 

“Give me three pounds of tembac," this strange 
mountain of a man had said to the nervous little blond 
cockney in a general store at the mines. 

n 


i8 


WILD BLOOD 


The tobacco was handed to him. 

He weighed it studiously, then : 

“Here, my man, I don't want this. Give me a square- 
face.” 

The jumpy little clerk received the tobacco again and 
set a bottle of gin on the counter. 

I was the other customer in the store. 

“Red-Top, ever cheer your stomach with a drop of 
white-fire ? From the looks o' you, you need one of my 
lamb stews. To make it proper you catch the lamb when 
the herder ain't lookin’ an' hold him tight so the cussed 
thing won’t baa-aa-a till you get a mile 'r so down the 
road. Best to bury head, hide and hoofs. 

“If you'd move fast, I don't believe you’d cast a 
shadow ! You need fattenin'. 

“Bury head, hide and hoofs. Police 're awful nosey 
in this man’s land. Then you dip up a little water, flavor 
same with a pint o’ brandy borrowed from last station ; 
cut up the two onions — nice fat fellows, borrowed from 
the same place ; also the half dozen potatoes. Set the old 
iron kettle over a dry wood fire, and when she comes to a 
boil crumble in some o’ that cheese borrowed from — don’t 
make no difference what station. 

“There’s tucker for you! Look to me. My cookin’ 
done that ” 

And he tapped his noble belly in justifiable pride of 
large achievement. 

“Start 'er, Red-Top, and take your fill. I never let 
go till bottom o’ bottle, keg or barrel goes toward 
heaven.” 

The clerk rather timidly offered a grimy cup, but the 
big man waved it away and pushed the bottle at me. 

I drank and handed the bottle over to him. He was 


WILD BLOOD 


19 


no idle boaster. He held the bottle at arm’s length for a 
second or two like a fond lover anticipating the embrace, 
then raised it to his lips, took a mighty breath and drank, 
and drank, drank, and drank. 

Slowly the bottom of that bottle crept upward and 
upward until, with him leaning far back as if trying to 
hide behind his own vast paunch, there was not a drop 
left. He straightened himself and puffed mightily, 
clapped the emptied bottle to counter and said : 

“ I like a bit of a swig ’fore dinner. Goin’ down the 
street ?” 

We started off. 

“Hi sye,” called the cockney, “w’at habout that gin ?” 

The mountainous man turned with stiffened 
shoulders, slowly, imposingly. 

“Hyu dydn’t pye me.” 

“Pay you? Pay you?” said the strange fellow with 
deepening voice. “Didn’t I give you the tembac for it ?” 

The cockney eyes and lips twitched for a moment in 
amazement; then — 

“Hyu dydn’t pye me for that !” 

“Of course I didn’t. I give it you for the square-face. 
Damn rotten stuff it was, too. Near gagged me. Think 
you tampered with it. Didn’t you? Didn’t you? I’ll 
complain to the first trooper I see, an’ you’ll have to open 
another ’un and let him test it. 

“My good freckled friend here’ll testify I give you 
three pound o’ tembac for a bad bottle o’ gin. Rotten 
stuff, wasn’t it?” 

I affirmed that it was wretched stuff. 

The poor cockney had a sort of cross-eyed expression 
on his face. He knew of course that someway he was 


20 


WILD BLOOD 


being bilked, and he knew how, but he was just a little 
baffled as to the way to cut through and say so. 

“Are you satisfied?” demanded my companion with 
a haughty depth of voice. 

“Y-ice,” said the cockney. “Honly keep hout hof my 
plyce l” 

“I will ; indeed I will. No storekeeper can cheat me 
more than once,” Hawkins returned pompously. 

Taking my arm forcibly, he strode out. 

I murmured something of my admiration for his new 
and original method of evading the perils of thirst. 

“No, no,” he rumbled. “Old Yankee trick. Useful 
in a pinch. I hadn't a shillin' and I had to have a drink. 
Good white-fire that.” 

I agreed that it was. 

“Shiver my jib-boom,” he said abruptly, stopping. 
“I'm a sea-captain. Avast the belayin'-pin and take two 
turns round the bobstay, lower away the ratlin' and — 
don't you believe it?” 

From his pocket he pulled a flat oblong paper, neatly 
protected by fish skin. 

“Here's a master's certificate to sail any ship he can 
get his feet on. Don't want 'o buy it, do you? I'm a 
starvin' man. Think o’ the years I worked and toiled to 
get this little piece of paper I'm offering you for a guinea. 
You keep the paper for security. I couldn't part with it. 

“You see b’fore you a perishin' fellow creature,” and 
he lowered his reverberant voice dolefully, at the same 
time endeavoring to draw his very fat face into an 
expression of despairing hunger. 

But the strain was too great. He came out of his 
affected melancholy with a roar, a great internal explo- 


[WILD BLOOD 


21 

sion of laughter so that his body shook as if by an 
earthquake from within. 

‘‘Who did you steal this from?” I asked. 

“Steal? Me? Sir!” Then, chuckling, “Taught a 
sailor to play poker and thought this might come in 
handy, seem’ as he didn't have more money.” 

I would guess that some seaman had robbed a skipper 
of his papers, probably for vengeance. 

Having in mind that Douglas Moore might somehow 
find occasion to use that paper by way of credentials — 
though he never did — I promised the man a guinea, and 
added an invitation to eat with us. He had said he was 
broke. Besides I liked him. 

“Take it,” he almost shouted with an impulsive 
gesture of two big hands. “Don't know one end of a 
ship from t'other. Just as soon go to hell as to sea. 

“Shipped once. Boat went on a mud-bank. Captain 
had me running from one side t'other to work 'er off. 
Ever' time I go to sea, have to set on the main hatch 
to keep 'er from listin'. 

“Went out on a yard — once. Got my feet wet. Hate 
ships. Never anything to eat on 'em. My name's 
Hawkins. Ben Hawkins. Burly Ben they call me — 
sometimes. 

“I been called lots o’ things. Sometimes I get excited 
an' set down on somebody. Silence.” 

He said that last in a low, slow solemn voice, spread- 
ing his hands with a gesture, diminuendo . 

“Got any tobacco?” 

I offered him “niggerhead.” 

Hawkins had been in the South Seas eighteen months 
or so, visited a few of the islands and come into Victoria 
to “look around.” So he said. But he was likely to say 


22 


WILD BLOOD 


anything, with or without innocent intent. The zest of 
life was within him. He liked to talk, and with the 
breathless brevity of fat men made his sentences short. 

Douglas Moore had thought it best to get far away 
from the place where he was known, at least for a while ; 
so he came around to Melbourne and vicinity and brought 
me with him. Some years before when our acquaint- 
anceship was new he had asked, “And will you keep 
sober ?” 

“I will not,” I told him. 

“At least you are no liar,” he said with a queer gleam 
in his fierce eyes. 

So in one way and another we had become something 
like friends. I asked no questions and he gave no infor- 
mation. He had a curious weakness for thinking I knew 
more than I did, and his orders were disconcertingly 
brief. 

Tradition had it that Moore had amassed a fortune 
and hid it away — when he had to pay three prices for 
everything to anybody that would sell to him. Many men 
found it more profitable to be friendly with him than to 
snatch at the price on his head. For one thing it was 
convenient to have Moore to blame for their own crimes. 
For another, supposing he wasn’t caught and learned who 
set officers in his wake? Moore stayed clear of white 
men as much as he could. He was called a renegade. 
Natives liked him. Plenty of natives would have given 
him up, but some would not. Many a chief lied for him, 
and native kings to a man almost were as his blood- 
brothers. 

Gin and rifles? No doubt he did furnish those things 
more than was legal, perhaps more than was wise and 


WILD BLOOD 


23 


proper. But he had overhauled more than one black- 
birder and taken back the captives to their own beach. 

To win favor with the natives? Perhaps. He knew, 
I knew, all who have been near them know, that natives 
are not innocent and guileless ; not even the best of them. 
But the worst of them are loyal and generous — unless 
they have been too intimate with white men. 

Time came when the devil seemed clamoring for pay, 
and Moore had got out of the islands and drifted like any 
other gold-hunter around to the bottom of Australia. I 
came along. So there we were when Hawkins loomed 
before the cockney clerk. 

I brought Hawkins to our shack, and he ate every- 
thing in sight and called it a “snack.” Moore had 
looked him over hard and said nothing. Hawkins had 
stared at Moore and been quiet for an hour or so — 
perhaps because he had been eating. 

I am about as thin as a hawser, and my joints are 
loose ; so one evening when Moore was away two bushy 
roughs came by, and were not mistaken in thinking I was 
an easy one to dispose of, and that they might then 
plunder the shack. 

Hawkins, inside in the dark, quietly, so he might 
accuse the rats of having made off with it, was eating a 
slab of “damper.” I had time to make one little squeak 
before a hangman’s grip was around my neck — then a 
mountain came through the doorway. The two gentle- 
men who had thought to bail up our lonesome little place 
were spilled on the ground, and the weighty knee of 
Hawkins held first one and then the other while he 
proceeded to search. 

•Hawkins emptied their pockets and calmly appro- 
priated the fair amount of dust he found on each. He 


24 


WILD blood; 


called it “manna.” After which he hobbled the two 
gentleman together, and we marched them over the dark 
road three miles to a jail at the diggings. 

The bushrangers protested indignantly that they had 
been robbed. Their mugs were against them. They were 
wanted men, and known to the constables. 

And back we trudged, loaded down with gin, rum 
and tobacco ; the necessities of life. We left to Moore the 
supplying of incidentals such as flour, sugar, mutton, 
bacon, butter and tea. Oh, yes ; we each bought a candle 
apiece so we could see to use the corkscrew, in the dark. 
Hawkins ate his — -the candle I mean. Many and merry 
were the songs we sang on the way. 

Moore looked at us — looked grimly, hard, at us — as 
we rolled in at dawn. I was drunk. I know. But I 
heard what he said, and I remember how he said it ; half 
to himself, but aloud, tense, earnestly, not sarcastically. 

“God, how I envy you fools ! I envy you !” 

So that day when Moore had settled with Davenant 
and given me abrupt orders to find him a crew, I searched 
out Hawkins taking a nap against a stump. 

By occasional tests I had discovered that Hawkins 
could not run — at least not far or fast. He could move 
fast simply by falling forward, and once within reach of 
his hands, one of which would almost hide a fair-sized 
sirloin, I was helpless as a corpse in the grip of a devil- 
fish. 

I squatted down some fifteen feet away and tossed 
a light pebble at him. Then a fair-sized chip zipped at his 
head. A miss. I tossed a clod at the unmissable belly, 
and he stiffened up with an ox-like grunt and swore. 

I stroked the bottle tenderly. A flash of interest 
passed over his face, but I told him to keep his seat. 


WILD BLOOD 


25 


“Water,” he said contemptuously. 

Now and then I had poured water into an empty 
square-face to watch the eager expression as he placed 
the bottle at his lips slowly change to one of surprised 
disgust as about half the quart went down before he 
knew what he was drinking. 

“Business,” I told him. 

He drew a large bowl with a short stem to it from his 
pocket and demanded tobacco. 

“Want to go to sea?” 

“Me? I been to sea. Supposin' the boat runs out o' 
grub? An' me on ’er. Who’s sure to be ’lected for 
supper? The cannibals! Give me a smoke.” 

I filled my pipe with a watchful eye on him. He made 
a move as if to rise, but I was on my feet and ready to 
retreat, tobacco, gin and all. 

He settled himself disconsolately and tipped the flabby 
brim of a shapeless hat over his head with one eye peek- 
ing out, hypnotically directed at the bottle. 

“Think of a ship loaded to the scuppers with iced beef 
and mutton ; a hundred cases of eggs ; pork and sausages ; 
biscuits and flour enough to feed all that heard the 
Sermon on the Mount ; a mountain of fresh butter ; coffee 
and rice; cabbages, potatoes and onions; too, live cows 
and a haystack on the fo’c’sle head — nice for drowsing on 
afternoons. A barrel of apples right by the forem’st with 
the head knocked in ! Think ! The hold full of ice, cov- 
ered with bottled ale and porter, and forty kegs of beer 
in the waist, with a spigot, cup and no sentry ; sherry, gin 
and rum, and three hundred pounds of books. And only 
eight good men besides yourself — to have it all. 

“Northward we’ll climb over the softly breathing 
breast of the ocean and take on a batch of Kanakas to do 


26 


WILD BLOOD 


the work. Well find a little island and pick up pearls, 
and all come back rich as nabobs. But they must be good 
men, good sailormen — so you won’t have to do any work 
yourself.” 

Both of Hawkins’s eyes were brightly visible and he 
was sitting up hungrily. 

He commented on my imagination but made an elab- 
orate effort to be less skeptical than he was. 

“Listen,” I whispered. “Moore’s made a stake. He 
wants a ship and crew. You’re the man to get it. He’s 
only a landlubber himself. You and I’ll run the ship. 

“You have the gift of eloquence, Ben. Pick out good 
husky sailor boys, or if they aren’t sailors, good husky 
lads able to warp a schooner off a mud-bank. You don’t 
want to heave back and forth to rock ’er off. 

“Remember that iced hold and the layer of bottled 
ale. Go quietly up and down, whispering to this man 
and that. Talk pearls and don’t forget the haystack.” 

I moved a bit closer. He was interested, and whis- 
pered back to ask if Moore had made a stake. I assured 
him. But Ben eyed me dubiously when I again mentioned 
that Moore was a landsman, green as stale cheese. 

“You get the crew. I’ll find the ship. Moore pays. 
Have a pipe, old Leviathan.” 

I tossed him my pouch. 

“Didn’t I mention cigars? A hundred boxes! And 
the 'pearls. Shh-h, but — we may have to poach a bit, but 
there are pearls !” 

“By the cracked crown of Cleopatra!” he muttered, 
eagerly ramming his finger into the pipe-bowl. 

“Have a drink.” I passed the bottle. 

He sniffed it; then bent backward; but I salvaged a 
spoonful or so for myself by a desperate snatch. 


WILD BLOOD 


27 


“You’re not leggin’ me?” 

Softly, confidingly: “Ben, old pal, how could you! 
Send ’em one at a time here to talk it over with me. 
Don’t mention Moore. You and I are running this.” 

“Is he goin’?” A quality of interest was in the 
question. 

“Of course.” 

“He’s made a stake? How?” 

“Don’t be nosey. He’s made a stake. By the way, 
ever’ member of the crew gets a bit of an advance. But 
it has to be q. t. Very. Good strong drinkin’ men.” 

So for the next few days it was I who lay propped 
against the stump in the shade while fellows of all stripe 
and color drifted up uneasily to question, listen, doubt, 
wonder. 

“Get me a crew,” Moore had said. 

It wasn’t the first time I had got him a crew, even 
of whites. I knew all that he wanted was eight or ten 
strong men, and no more than two or three needed to be 
sailors. He’d make sailors out of them. “Plenty quick, 
damyes” as a black boy of fair observation powers had 
remarked. 

I served out gin and lies generously. Moore had gone 
to Melbourne with Davenant. I had a free hand. I 
talked of fresh milk and haystacks, bottled ale and a hold 
of ice; and fired some men, made others dubious, and 
convinced many that there was nothing to it. 

Blame me for this and other things; I am offering a 
story, and not pointing a moral. And what could I have 
done with the truth? As it was a pair of constables 
called to squat at my feet and listen. I offered them the 
soft berths of cabin-boys, and spoke of a haystack on the 


28 


WILD BLOOD 


fo’c’sle head. They went away tapping their heads signif- 
icantly. 

Hawkins talked with vast gestures and strange oaths, 
displayed his captain’s papers, and sent recruits trudging 
to me. Whisper “Treasure” to the winds, and the feet 
of men follow the echo as children the Pied Piper . Pearls 
are nearly as potent as pirate’s gold, or nature’s. Beer, 
ale and a haystack — it is magic. 

One by one I settled on a choice of men ; one or two 
who knew something of work aloft, and others big- 
muscled and hard. And to these I put it more or less 
direct : “Do you want to go north on a hell-ship that’ll 
pay double wages to good men? You’ll be welcome to 
quit any time you see land, and there won’t be complaints 
in port for mutineers.” 

One by one they backed out, confused in mind between 
the two conflicting inducements ; but now and then this 
fellow and that said he’d sign on for the Sulphur Lake 
itself. A bit of an air of mystery helped me, and for their 
own good I weeded the faint-hearted. I had sailed with 
Douglas Moore — under the name by which he was known 
from Manila to Port Said. Hawkins stewed and fussed 
as he saw the backsliders; but I cheered him up as best 
I could and waited. 

All manner of rumors were in the air as to just how 
crazy we were. Was there ever a ship went out of port 
in those days, or these, where the truth was told to the 
forecastle ? Perhaps — not. 

Douglas Moore came back. He had nothing to say 
more than that I had done it in my own crazy way, as 
usual, and ask how many could reef and steer ? 

“Four say they can, but three are liars. One one- 


WILD BLOOD 


20 


eyed little fellow wants off the mainland, bad. He's a 
sailor.” 

For the next few days Moore had a desire to fish and 
he went out and around, and sometimes didn't come back 
with the night or dawn. As a skipper “reckless," men 
called him. Not so, except when crowded. He knew 
tides and currents because they were life and death to 
him, and he hazarded no chance that foresight would 
evade. There is a powerful pull of tide on the southern 
coast, where the whole of the antarctic draws its breath ; 
and an occasional land breeze ; also sand-banks. 

One evening after a moody, protracted silence about 
the lone wavering candle, jammed into a bottle-neck and 
dripping to the table, Hawkins said to me : 

“I heard of a fellow once broke the hemp three times. 
What’d they do with a man o' my weight? And when 
're you goin' 'o buy them cows?” 

“Meaning ?” 

“The Lady Betty” he whispered, folding his thick 
hands across his belly and staring at me. 

“Who guessed it?” 

“Raikes.” 

“Well?" 

“He said you was Dan McGuire." 

“And?" 

Hawkins moistened his lips a time or two. He was 
reluctant to go on. 

I looked at him lazily — as lazily as I could with my 
heart rising throatward. 

“He said he’d seen you once at Apia. Pointed out 
as — as — as " 

He stopped. 

“Yes. I've been there.” 


30 


WILD BLOOD 


With resolution: “Said he didn’t really know” — the 
voice dropped — “Hurricane Williams.” 

The candle wavered fretfully; a dingo wailed in 
lonesome anguish and a ghost-like breath passed through 
the uneasy forest behind our shack. The man called 
Moore was night-fishing out on the bay. It was moonless 
and he was alone. 

I wondered how I could get word to him ; and how 
we would get out. To take to the bush with native 
trackers put on the trail would be folly. He was no 
bush man. 

“And he thinks I — I — am Williams?” I tried to 
laugh — a little. 

“No. You’re Dan McGuire, Raikes says. I’ve seen 
Hurricane Williams. Once.” 

“Where?” I asked slowly. 

“Bundy Bay. We was ’cruitin’ niggers. Williams 
showed up. We didn’t get our niggers. 

“Come alongside. Told our captain to start a fight 
an’ he’d blow him an’ his old Fijian Maid high as heaven. 
Said it was the captain’s only chance to get there. Put 
the niggers back on the beach.” 

“Then why ” 

But I checked myself. Perhaps after all the man 
was lying. 

“Wouldn’t mentioned it ’cept Raikes wondered who 
Moore might be. I said he was a landlubber — thought a 
sheet-anchor was something to keep beddin’ from slippin’ 
off o’ nights. Raikes don’t want to ’tract no ’tention to 
himself by informin’ unless it is Williams. Thinks he’d 
get a pardon then.” 

“He said that ?” 


WILD BLOOD p 

“Not in words. I ain’t big a fool as I look. I knowed 
it was Williams — that first day” 

I knocked my pipe against the edge of the table and 
scrutinized the inside of the bowl as I spoke — 

“And the Lady Betty?” 

“I guessed it was her. Seem’ as how you an’ him 
an’ that black Englishman had your heads together — an’ 
knowin’ Williams.” 

I arose carelessly, affected a yawn and threw myself 
on to my bunk ; a revolver was under the pillow. 

“We could divide the reward,” I suggested specula- 
tively, casually, without emphasis one way or the other. 

Hawkins stood up slowly, fingers in belt. His shadow 
blotted out the side of the shack, and he said simply : 

“You ain’t that kind. Nor me. We got to look out 
for Raikes, though.” 

I wondered: Did this big fellow have blood on his 
own hands and think to shelter himself under the leader- 
ship of Hurricane Williams? Certainly no innocent, 
either of us. Certainly not villains either. 

I was a wastrel and knew it and did not care — except 
perhaps when sober. Hawkins was not a ruffian. True, 
he was not such a simpleton as he appeared. Excitement, 
the zest for adventure, has made more villains than ever 
bad blood. Not so many perhaps as bad laws — laws hard 
to obey, and harder to make peace with when broken. 
And both together have made fewer no doubt than the 
lash and treadmill of early Australia. 

But none of those were my excuse. Williams, indeed 
Williams had gone so far that the noose dangled above 
him; more than that he had once dangled from it. And 
I followed him in a way that probably did not greatly 


32 


WILD BLOOD 


differ, if dogs could speak and explain, from the way a 
dog follows a master. 

Williams was strange ; ferocious at times, occasionally 
cruel; but someway, if one understood, never without a 
certain — not nobility, or dignity, so much as justification. 
He was almost always moved by something visibly deeper 
than mere anger; somehow there seemed a principle , 
sensed rather than thought about, from which he never 
was deflected. 

What excuse could Hawkins have for loyalty to Will- 
iams? Williams had done a world of things for me. I 
put it to him bluntly : 

“Moore is Williams. Why didn’t you inform?” 

Hawkins fumbled at my pouch on the table, awk- 
wardly filled his mouth with tobacco, spat toward the 
doorway once or twice, pretended to adjust the candle 
and brushed to the floor a thick mess of dead and half- 
dead insects that littered the table. Then : 

“Maybe I’m like Raikes. Only I know I wouldn’t 
get a pardon.” 

“I’m interested.” And I was. 

“I killed the captain o’ the Fijian Maid. Stretched 
me over the main hatch an’ served rope-end.” 

“That’s a lie. Papers at Sydney carried an inter- 
view with him when he came back from Bundy Bay that 
time.” 

Hawkins, unannoyed, unoffended, looked at me. He 
really seemed to have an absent-minded expression on his 
big, thick face. 

“Just as bad not to kill ’m — since I tried. An’ how 
d’you expect me to hide? If I’s skinny I’d crawl in a 
snake-hole. What about Raikes?” 

That was no time to quarrel with Hawkins. I did 


WILD BLOOD 


33 


not exactly mistrust him; but it isn’t restful to wake up 
and find a stranger has your secret. 

We talked about Raikes. We knew where he was. 
We knew about what he would be doing. . . When 
Douglas Moore, who might as well be called by his better 
known name, Williams — termed “Hurricane,” not so 
much to commemorate any experience with a wild blow, 
as because of certain personal characteristics — when he, 
I say, came in shortly before day he found his bunk 
occupied. 

Williams was muddy, wet and two-thirds naked. 
Hawkins and I were drowsily playing seven-up with dirty 
dog-eared cards. 

“You’re Cerberus,” I said. 

“Who’s he?” demanded Hawkins. 

“A big dog that guarded fellows like that.” I indi- 
cated the bunk at which Williams had been looking. He 
had then turned questioningly to me. 

By agreement Hawkins and I were to play until 
Williams came. The loser at that time was to be Raike’s 
guardian. 

“He guessed it, Skipper,” I said to Williams, waving 
a hand toward the gagged and bound Raikes. 

Williams stiffened, and without bending seemed to 
half-crouch. An attitude that I knew well; and one 
from which, as if shot by a spring, he could go across a 
room or deck. He looked at Hawkins, then at me. 
Hawkins did not notice. 

“He was on the Fijian Maid ” I explained, a glance 
at Hawkins. 

For a moment Williams seemed suspicious even of 
me. A thousand pounds is much money for a loafer, for 
two loafers, to have within arm’s reach. 


34 


WILD BLOOD 


He turned toward Hawkins. His short questions 
jerked out answers : 

“Her tonnage ?” 

“Hundred an’ fifty,” said Hawkins. 

“Captain ?” 

“Carp Taylor.” 

“Where?” 

“Bundy Bay.” 

“What kind of ship’s boat did I come longside in ?” 

“Native boat it was. Ten niggers. One of ’em had a 
coconut in his hand.” 

Williams nearly smiled. He was satisfied that 
Hawkins had been at Bundy Bay. But it was no coconut 
the “nigger” held. Had anybody fired on the native 
boat as it lay alongside that fact would have been discov- 
ered, explosively. 

Williams turned to the doorway through which the 
morning light came, and wrote in a little note-book. 

“What shall I do with him?” Hawkins asked with 
accentuated helplessness. 

“You know where my razor is?” 

“Take off his ears first?” 

I sat on a corner of the table and studied the problem. 
Raikes wasn’t much of a problem ; one of those men that 
seem made out of leather, and have been wet and shrunk. 
His lone eye glared viperously. 

“No, I think I would take a chip off his nose. Too 
long for perfect beauty. Now yours is just about the 
right length, and shaped like a walnut.” 

Hawkins lifted my razor from the tin tobacco-box 
and approached the bunk, took hold of Raikes’s nose and 
held the razor hoveringly. 


WILD BLOOD 35 

I stooped over and showed him where to begin 
cutting. Raikes had quit thinking it might be a joke. 

Then Hawkin’s big arm was knocked up, half- 
broken. 

I found myself across the shack and sitting on my 
neck. 

Hawkins struck back, but he might as well have hit at 
a shadow, except that no shadow would have returned 
such a blow as came to his chin. He went over slowly, 
weakeningly. 

“You drunken idiots !” Williams said between hard- 
set teeth. 

I closed the eye that he had not hit and assumed 
unconsciousness. Hawkins, not unconscious, blinked 
wonderingly, and looked from around the leg of a table 
at Williams, who turned again to the doorway and went 
on with his notes. 

We were half-drunk, it is true. But Hawkins 
showed no anger and held no grudge. Anyway, who 
knew of Hurricane Williams knew pretty much what to 
expect at times. 

We both turned into our bunks, were asleep, and 
were shaken out again in what seemed about ten minutes. 

“We take her out to-night/’ Williams said briefly. 

There was much to do before then ; much too much to 
do for two weary, sleepless men, one of whom had a 
headache and a blind eye. 


CHAPTER III 


THE WOMAN, BLACK-ROBED AND VIVID 

N IGHT came, and with it down the road a wagon 
creaked slowly and stopped before our shack. Two 
people got off and went into the house. The wagon 
drove on and followed the road down toward the bay. 

At some remote period a hungry wave had taken a 
bite out of the coast-line, a small bite, and people called 
it a bay. In a nook of that bay the Lady Betty rode her 
moorings placidly and awaited the judgment of magis- 
trates. 

It was toward the bay that the wagon went. 

I had no time to notice closely the wagon or the 
passengers. 

I was busily acting as a host. Hawkins should have 
been assisting. But he was acting as a guest. When 
there was anything to eat and drink he slipped into that 
role and stayed there. 

There was much to drink; there was more to eat. 
Whole legs of mutton were roasting on an open oven, 
and bottled ale was to be had by reaching out and tighten- 
ing the fingers. More came than were invited, but there 
was plenty for all; that is, plenty to eat. I served no 
strong liquors. They were carefully packed in a small 
barrel, and that barrel, I thought, was going aboard the 
Lady Betty just as surely as I did. 

So were our guests going aboard. They did not know 

36 


WILD BLOOD 


37 


it. Had the secret been whispered to them some if not 
many would have slipped away and babbled. They 
would learn in time. Now they were being pampered. 
Salt horse and biscuits were to follow. 

Well fed and inwardly warmed, men are always easier 
to handle. They fall in with suggestions. Precious little 
good it would have done them to fall out. Williams had 
need of them. 

Around on the ground a dozen men squatted. Rough 
fellows, rough of voice, manner, clothes and hands ; loud 
and free with their words. Most of them were in boots. 
They puffed their pipes and drank, talked loud, and 
carved into the browned sweet, juicy legs dropped on the 
fresh plank before them. 

All afternoon a cook, lured from a steady job by one 
day's high wage, had been at work. He was drunk as a 
cook should be ; but his meat was done to the turn. A 
mound of sliced cabbage, soaked in soured wine and 
salted, was disappearing down voracious throats; and 
hot potatoes prodded out from under the ashes were 
opened and stuffed with butter. 

I was to see that no man who might be useful on 
board the Lady Betty got uselessly drunk. I thought the 
cook was useful and he was already drunk; but he had 
been at it all afternoon. 

Yet I was to see that no man noticed that he was not 
getting all he wanted to drink. I did it by being free 
with the ale and reserving the gin and rum for myself. 
Hawkins could die of thirst at sea before I would surren- 
der a drop. He was entertaining himself with the story 
of his life, and relating how he worked up from cabin-boy 
to captain. Nobody believed him; but for all anybody 
knew he was paying for the feast, so many were attentive. 


38 


"WILD BLOOD 


Others talked for themselves: 

“Over on the Turon I washed out ” 

“I seed ’em niggers swim un’er ducks an’ pull ’em 
down by the laigs ” 

“Believe me ’r not, them Burrendong nuggets was big 
as ” 

“The heller took it broadside an’ carried away the 
pipe fr’m ’tween my teeth — an’ me in the crow’s-nest, 
mindju !” 

Somebody was trying to sing, and that unfortunately 
reminded Hawkins. He had a voice. I had told him 
earnestly that it was like the braying of a bull. A deep, 
roaring voice it was, and he lifted it up — or rather low- 
ered it, for the louder he talked the deeper it seemed to 
come from his cavernous belly — in a chorus of : 

“An’ when we go to hell — to hell — 

An’ when our souls they take, 

We’ll hoist the skull an’ cross-b-on-es 
An’ sail the Sulphur Lake !” 

“You’ll get your neck hoisted to a yard-arm, you 
make any noise like that above some ships I know,” I 
mumbled into his ear. 

“Say, Red-Top,” he retorted aloud, very much 
aloud, “how did you get that eye spotted?” 

And many fellows laughed. 

One caught at my arm and asked if I’d seen Raikes. 

Raikes, for safe-keeping, was stored under a bunk 
inside the house. I had forgotten Raikes. Hawkins, 
encouraged by those about him who knew nothing of 
harmony, was singing again: 


WILD BLOOD 


39 


“Fill ’er t’ th’ brim or fill ’er higher, 

Fill ’er with rum or fill ’er with fire, 

An’ I’ll drink ’er down — drink ’er down!” 

Under the noise I whispered confidentially: 

“Shh-hh ! Raikes met a couple of fellows yesterday. 
He’s hiding out.” 

The man nodded sympathetically. 

That was how I came to he reminded that I had 
forgotten to feed Raikes. 

I heaped up a tin plate with whatever was in sight. 
Williams — there never was such a man for remembering 
trifles — had told me to be sure to feed Raikes. I stuck 
a bottle of ale under each arm and went across, some 
hundred yards (for we didn’t want the noisy barbecue 
too closely associated with our house) to the shack. 

It was dark inside. Though I knew my way about as 
well as a rat knows a buttertub, I had my hands full 
and did stumble a bit just as I was saying, “Here, old 
Raikes, crawl out from — ” and having stumbled, I swore 
a little. 

A woman’s voice, scornfully, bitterly — “Drunken 
beast !” 

Holding a candle above my head I peered at the two 
dark, cloaked figures: the Englishman, Davenant, and 
his daughter, so-called. 

Perhaps I was a little unsteady. For one thing it was 
a surprise ; and maybe I was nervous. 

And I had no way of knowing how I appeared to 
them; nor did I realize at the time that my brick-dust 
hair was thrusting itself at all angles. Throughout the 
afternoon I had been around a fire, all evening handling 
greasy meats, and as the mosquitoes were about my hands 


40 


WILD BLOOD 


had been many times to my face. I was grimy and 
greased. Also my eyes were discolored, and one was 
quite closed. 

Having only one eye to use, logically it took longer 
than it would otherwise. I had a hard time believing that 
one eye. 

She was too — I shall not say beautiful. She was 
more distinctive than that. I had read some place — 
Williams contrived always to have books about, though 
most of them were worthless technical things — as I was 
saying, I had read some place that wicked women look 
best in artificial light. If that were true, then she must 
be a daughter of the devil himself. 

Women were about as common as coconuts ; one 
found them every place. All kinds, except such as 
she. Stockmen’s wives and daughters; squatters’ wives, 
daughters and aunts; in towns there were always the 
disdainful, corseted wives and daughters of officials ; and 
not counting natives — who were often ugly as the white 
ladies — there were plenty of women besides those men- 
tioned. “Unmentionables,” I believe they are sometimes 
called. 

She differed from all of them. 

She and Davenant in uneasy impatience had chosen 
to sit in the dark that they might the better be unnoticed 
until Williams returned. 

The cloak enveloped her like folded raven wings. Her 
pale face with an imperious tilt met my stupid gaze. 
Black her eyes, and bright. Her fingers, lifted up and 
touching her cheek, were long, and rings glistened on 
them. 

The face seemed rather long and the outline of the 
forehead, cheeks and chin was uneven, though her nose 


WILD BLOOD 


4i 


was straight and thin. The brows were straight and 
black, the lashes long. A delicate face, but not sickly. 

I had thought that women's mouths were all alike 
until I saw hers ; it was wide, and expressive even in 
repose. She looked at me unalarmed, unembarrassed; 
but she evidently decided that I would not grow tired of 
staring. 

At last she asked with repressed, stinging bitterness 
if she were the first woman I had ever seen. 

“Yes'um, the first houri!” 

A faint ripple of disdainful amusement ran sound- 
lessly along her lips. She was not displeased. 

I turned toward Davenant. He was staring at me in 
a sort of detached, impersonal, chilly sullenness. It was 
his way. 

I dabbed the table with grease and stuck the candle 
upright and became the affable host, telling them they 
should have made themselves at home, lighted up, or even 
come down to the banquet. No doubt they had heard it. 
She nodded remotely. She heard it, and evidently she 
would just as soon not have heard it. 

I asked them to excuse me for a minute as I had to 
feed Raikes, and requested the lady to lift her legs or 
move across the room. 

Slowly, as if questioning my senses, she gathered her 
skirts and raised her feet on to the bunk where she was 
sitting. 

“Come on, Raikesy, old boy. We've got company. 
Too bad you had a rag in your mug.” And I rolled him 
out. 

“Have to watch him,” I Explained to her. “He 
might bite. Rather think he will. I forgot to feed 'im. 


£2 WILD BLOOD 

Better not listen, ’cause he’s likely to say awful swear- 
words.” 

I loosened Raike’s gag, but he was silent. He did not 
so much as look at the woman or man. I glanced at 
them. They were looking, each at the other; they had 
not known there was anybody within ear-shot. 

I loosened Raikes’s hands, and he began eating wolf- 
ishly. Before, every time the man had had a chance to 
talk he had done so with vicious threats and curses. Not 
the presence of a woman would humble him. I knew 
that. 

We were all strainedlv silent. 

At last she asked who he was. 

“We’re shanghai-ing him. Only sailor in port. Isn’t 
much to look at, but you ought to hear him cuss. A real 
sailor.” 

She paid no attention to what I said, but looked 
intently at the blind profile of Raikes. 

“That man shall not go with us,” Davenant declared 
firmly. 

“Indeed not !” she added decisively, meaningly. 

“That’s something you’ll have to talk over with some- 
body that knows something about it,” I said. 

Raikes greedily guzzled from a bottle and, otherwise 
silent, kept his face averted. 

There were other things for me to attend. I trussed 
Raikes up again. He did not resist as usual. I rolled 
him out of sight under the bunk, though there was really 
no need to — yet one could never tell who might drop in 
casually and ask questions. 

In answer to Davenant’s impatient demand to know 
when Douglas Moore would be back, I shook a non- 
committal head. I went out into the warm night. 


WILD BLOOD 


43 


Hawkins was still singing. There was much effort about 
it. I would have to remind him that vocal efforts on a 
loaded stomach were harmful to the voice. 

But the world was not the same to me. I had looked 
upon Lilith — or somebody like her. I could not get that 
woman’s face or voice out of my mind. I was bothered, 
fretted. I wished that I had been in Raikes’s place, and 
listened. 

Somebody was spinning a yarn. If there is truthful- 
ness in wine I do not know what there is in ale. Perhaps 
the fellow was not wholly lying. Anyway, he had the 
attention of us all. He had been shipwrecked; there 
were five of them in the boat ; they were dying of hunger 
and thirst ; the usual rains had fallen from time to time, 
so that they sucked their shirts and eased parched 
tongues ; as usual in stories of the kind somebody must be 
eaten, and he had discovered that by common consent he 
was to be the victim when — Williams appeared. 

He was bare from the waist up. A long knife — and 
he knew how to use it — hung at his left side. He was 
wet. 

“How many of you men want to go to sea, now?” 

His voice was hard. He stood sternly looking from 
one to another in a way that wouldn’t tempt many men 
to say “Yes,” but would make the perceptive ones cau- 
tious of saying “No.” 

Three or four stood up, among them Hawkins. 

“You fellows ain’t goin’ throw me down like this, are 
you?” Hawkins exclaimed. 

I expected to hear from Williams at that. It was 
best to let him run things in his own way when he started. 
He said nothing. Two or three more stood up, mumbling 


44 


WILD BLOOD 


something about not knowing it was Hawkins they were 
going with. 

“Take them to the beach,” said Williams to Hawkins. 

They stumbled away, Hawkins heartily in the lead. 

“McGuire !” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Armed?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Shoot the man that moves.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

I pulled the revolver from under my shirt. Williams 
walked hurriedly toward the shack. 

I told the men that I was sorry — which I wasn’t— 
but that trouble was in the air : 

“Ground’s cold an’ worms’ll make their beds in your 
marrow-bones — if you move. Who’ll be the first to 
doubt I can hit ’im in the back at twenty paces? No? 
Well, I can’t — so I won’t wait for anybody to get that 
far.” 

It wasn’t my presence, my armed attitude, my chatter, 
that kept them to the ground. They had heard Williams. 
He was convincing. Someway even I could do brave 
things if Williams told me to, or if he stood and watched. 

Not that holding a few men, unarmed men, in a 
ragged circle was brave. Possibly they wouldn’t have 
remained if they had known what was ahead for some of 
them during the next few months. 

Presently came footsteps, and figures emerged from 
the shadows ; Raikes in the lead, carrying the light bundle 
of personal effects of his own which Williams had had 
me make up for him : behind him, Williams, then Daven- 
ant and the woman. 

“Stand up,” said Williams. 


WILD BLOOD 


45 


Some stood up at once ; ^ome dragged themselves up 
reluctantly. Two sat still. I tried to convey good advice 
by unobtrusive gestures, but the two stubborn men did 
not see or heed. Williams did not repeat orders. 

He grabbed the man nearest to him by the hair and 
jerked him forward. The man got up quickly enough. 
He arose with his arms flying like flails; and went 
down — knocked flat to his back. 

The other man was on his feet when Williams looked 
around. 

It had happened in clipped seconds. 

The first fellow arose sullenly, perhaps wondering if 
it had been a club. 

Face to back they were placed, hands on the shoulders 
in front, and Williams by the side of the line and I at 
the rear. Raikes was front man. It seemed that Raikes 
was going on the Lady Betty . 

Down to the beach at midnight we marched, silent 
except for heavy steps. 

Experience had taught Williams how easily men 
could be cowed if one got the “jump” on them. Though 
I doubt if he gave a thought to what constituted the 
jump. When he wanted something done it had to be 
done. 

He had already been on board the Lady Betty. The 
three watchmen — one, I believe, placed there by the court ; 
one by some chandler ; and one — I don’t know whom he 
represented. Possibly the A. B. A. Anyway the three of 
them had met Williams, and were lying quietly alongside 
the galley listening to the gentle splash of the outward 
tide that pulled at the Lady Betty as if to take her with it. 

For one flickering minute it looked as if the men 


46 


WILD BLOOD 


would have trouble on the beach. They started in to talk, 
to ask questions, to protest. 

Encouraged by Williams's ominous silence, they began 
to seem aggressive. They were freemen. They were 
British subjects — most of them. They were going to do 
this and not do that, and the constables, the troopers, the 
magistrates, the governor, the prime minister, the queen 
should hear of it ! 

“Stow that, you loons," cried a hard, rasping voice. 
“He's Hurricane Williams!" 

Raikes had told it. In a moment of excited, generous 
warning he had blurted the name. 

A sudden hush, a craning of necks and bulging of 
eyes, came over them. Hurricane Williams, renegade, 
pirate, cannibal — anything at all — was another person 
than the mere bullying stranger they had thought him. 

The woman in French exclaimed, “Mother of God!" 
Davenant exploded a “What!" and followed it with a 
“You don't say!" 

Williams ignored the mention of his name. But I 
wonder whether he was not thrilled by its magic ; secretly 
a little proud of the awe. After all, the man must have 
been more human than he appeared. Or else he was 
mad, mad. 

There was no wharf. Boats landed on the beach. 
Williams “borrowed" the three in sight, including a large 
flat-bottom punt-like thing owned by some Chinamen. 
The wagon that had brought Davenant and the woman 
was just above the sand, where the driver camped. The 
wagon was filled with boxes and bundles, some of them 
taken on at our shack ; and the men, herded by Williams, 
Hawkins and me, carried them to the beach and filled 
the boats. 


WILD BLOOD 


47 


Williams put men at the oars of the first boat and 
made off, towing the others. Hawkins was in the second. 
I was in the last with Davenant and the woman. 

"Is that man really Hurricane Williams ?” she asked 
in a way that conveyed strong personal interest. 

"Can’t say for sure. But I never heard him deny it.” 

"What sort of man is he really?” asked Davenant. 

"Asleep he’s just like anybody else. Only he don’t 
sleep much.” 

"And awake?” she asked feverishly. 

"He don’t let nobody else sleep. Easy man to get 
acquainted with. Very. All you have to do is shake 
your head when he tells you to do something. But I got 
a flour-barrel half full of gin and rum hid over there, and 
how am I going to get it ?” 

She asked more questions. Questions are the easiest 
things in the world to ask. There was a kind of tense 
curiosity in her tones, but her manner was cold. She was 
interested, but she did not want to appear to be. 

I told her something in confidence, strict confidence, 
for I didn’t see any reason why she should sleep that 
night, any more than the rest of us. Yes, Williams was 
a terrible man. Had she noticed that knife? Look out 
for that knife. Williams had an idea that the knife 
would die of thirst if it didn’t drink blood every few days. 
It was too dark or I would show scars of where the 
knife had bit me — while I was asleep. 

I whispered that to her in the tone always used by 
the hero in furtively warning the pretty girl on the blood- 
drenched boards of Sydney theaters. 

"McGuire, look out !” Williams called at me. 

I gave the steering-oar a swirl and brought our boat 
gunwale to gunwale alongside of Hawkins, who laid by 


.WILD BLOOD 


43 

the overgrown sampan. Williams leaped up the low 
free-board of the Lady Betty and called four of the men. 
They went slowly. 

“With a will there,” He warned them. “Man that 
windlass.” 

He had not wasted his time when on the Lady Betty 
early in the evening. The gear was set, block and tackle 
bent to yard, and in no time at all the heavier boxes 
were jerked up to the deck. All was clear, and all of us 
were on deck. 

In the hurly-burly of work somebody snatched at a 
file-rail and struck Williams a blow from behind. I 
saw it too late to interfere. It was the man who had 
first refused to move from the fire, and he struck with 
a belaying-pin. 

Williams reeled forward, half-fell and came up, facing 
about — and hit, knife in hand ; but it was the butt of the 
handle that he drove into the fellow’s face. Seeing the 
fight was on, others had crouched to rush Williams. 

I suppose I would have shot, but Hawkins got in my 
way. I could not see exactly what he did, for his back 
was the kind that cuts out all view of what goes on in 
front; but I had the impression that his two massive 
arms had reached in a sort of all-embracing circle; and 
the sharp crack as of husked coconuts striking together 
made me think that some heads had come one against 
another. Anyway quiet followed. 

Williams stood for a moment above the groaning man 
he had knocked flat. He was half-stooping and trembled 
almost drunkenly as he looked down with distorted face. 
But he said nothing. He did nothing. 

I was almost frozen for those five or six seconds, as 
I was always more or less frozen when I saw him in a 


WILD BLOOD 


49 


temper. The temper that made him a thunderbolt of 
suddenness, once loosened, was — or would have been in 
any other man — uncontrollable. 

He straightened and turned away; a hand lifted to 
his neck where the pin had caught him; then his hand 
dropped. It must have hurt. But there was work to do. 

I was sent to the wheel, near where the woman and 
Davenant stood in lonesome uncertainty, made a little 
uneasy by the clatter and movement forward. Backs 
bent to the windlass, the anchors were pulled up, and the 
Lady Betty floated free in a strong outward tide. But 
she had yet to be warped clear of the bay, else likely as 
not she would put her nose into a sand-bank and hold us 
there for the enraged magistrates. 

Williams lined the crew aft and talked to them for 
about forty seconds. In that time he told them he had 
nothing to offer but good wages and plenty of work, with 
the chance of their necks getting pulled by hemp if they 
stayed with him ; but he would put down in the log that 
they were pressed men — which might do them some 
good. All who were willing to chance it, one step to the 
front. 

One man stepped out. Raikes. 

“I want at least eight men. Four pounds a month 
and five pounds bonus,” he said. 

Three more stepped out, one of them Raulson, the 
cook, who had been caught in the general shanghai-ing. 

The other four were forcibly selected. 

“We’ll be in Broome in two weeks,” he said carelessly, 
encouragingly. 

There was never another captain like him. I have 
heard about many, read of some and sailed with a few. 
He always did most of the work. He would do almost 


50 


WILD BLOOD 


anything but cook and scrub. He was all over the ship 
at all hours of the day and night, below and aloft, adjust- 
ing, inspecting, measuring. 

Men said he was crazy. Perhaps that was because he 
never gave the wiliest a chance to soldier. He was a 
slave-driver and crank. Everything must be tidy and 
stout, veritably shipshape. 

But there was method in his madness. When a reward 
is on a skipper's head every inch of canvas must catch 
wind and pull, every line, brace and clew hold, the 
running rigging render, and the standing rigging stand. 

Williams had them break out a hundred-fathom 
hawser ; and, bending an end to the kinghtheads, tumbled 
a dozen men — including the three watchmen, loosened 
from their bonds to assist their charge in running away 
from them — into the Chinese punt, and, getting in him- 
self, revolver in hand, they rowed out to warp the ship 
on her way. 

Raikes and another fellow who knew his fingers from 
a gasket were working aloft, making ready to sheet home, 
soon as we could catch the wind. A good land breeze 
usually came up about this time; and soon as Williams 
rounded a sand-bar that lay across the Lady Betty's bow 
— his fishing-lines had made good leads to give him 
soundings — he came, swimming and pulling himself 
along the hawser, on board and shook out the canvas, 
then took the wheel himself. But he kept that boat-load 
of towers at the end of the hawsers, and pulling. 

They had warning to keep that hawser tight or a rifle 
would open on them; and if they cast off and tried to 
escape some of them would be shot. There wasn't much 
light, but they were frightened. 

A mile or more out when the wind freshened stiffly 


WILD BLOOD 


5 * 


we came atop them, and a frightened lot they were. Will- 
iams took back the four pressed men, who looked as if 
they might be, or be made into, sailors and turned the 
others loose to make their way to land. Against the tide: 
they would not be able to reach land and give the alarm 
for four or five hours. 

So the Lady Betty was off, but there was no rest for 
the weary. Not even for me, who bemoaned my flour- 
barrel half full of good inspiriting liquor left on shore. 
Not even for Davenant, who found that an owner didn't 
amount to much on a ship with Williams as skipper. Ours 
was certainly a piratical-looking ship if ever one Went to 
sea, or rather piratical-acting. 

A fellow was found who said he knew how to steer. 
He did a bit. Davenant was given a revolver and told to 
shoot him if he left that wheel or if any other man came 
on to the poop. Davenant sat on a case of rifles and took 
the situation composedly; and Miss Davenant refused to 
go below. Perhaps she was a bit alarmed. More likely, 
I came to know her a little better — she was fascinated 
by the grim romance of it all, the eery feeling of danger, 
the slapping and dash and oaths of the men at work in 
the darkness. 

The ship was light ballasted, a little too light in fact, 
but he put on every yard of canvas that could be hung; 
and working in the dark on a strange ship it was no 
child's play to run out booms and clew down the studding- 
sails. And it was practically useless to give orders, for 
Raikes, Hawkins and I were about the only ones who 
knew what they meant. Hawkins could no more go aloft 
than he could go through the eye of a needle ; but he was 
as good as a windlass. 

It was a foolish thing to carry so much sail with ai 


5~2 


WILD BLOOD 


worthless crew, for if a blow had hit us we would have 
been left to swim for it. But Williams was in a hurry. 
The fellow wasn’t human when it came to work. 

There was no division into watches. The men slept 
on the decks, and I with them, jumping up — it seemed — 
every ten minutes to pull here and slacken there. Straight 
south we headed, which certainly wasn’t toward Broome. 
He expected that he would be searched for in that 
direction. 

I wish I might have nothing to remember of the next 
few weeks. I had heard of the Tasmanian sea, but it was 
my first meeting with it. None of us had been there 
before. I did my best to be seasick and some succeeded 
better than I. Except for the strain and danger it would 
have been unpleasantly amusing. 

The brig bcfbbed along like a drunken sailor in an 
earthquake. We carried too much sail, and the Lady 
Betty was light-headed anyway; and we were caught 
in the ragged ends of the great waves that roll endlessly 
below Tasmania, waves that stormlessly rise to forty and 
fifty feet, and I have heard various liars estimate their 
length. A hundred miles, say some. As if they knew. 
There is nothing to stop either the waves or the liars. 

And though we made headway in fine shape it seemed 
as if we were plowing through a war of mill-races. We 
bobbed like an egg-shell in a tub of boiling water; and 
were close-hauled at that. And because I was supposed 
to know how to steer, Williams shortly after dawn gave 
the wheel to me, snarling, “Full-and-by.” 

The forecastle was awash, and it looked to me as if 
the Lady Betty was doing her best to head on for the 
bottom. Frustrated again and again, she dipped her 
nose under, and I would swear that I felt the rudder clear 


WILD BLOOD 


53 


a time or two. The ballast wasn’t right in the first place, 
and to take our thoughts from other troubles it shifted, 
and the star-board rail was awash. 

That was too much for even Williams. Besides, we 
had raised land, and were well out of the path of the 
Bass Strait shipping. Sail was taken in forward and aft, 
and we drifted along under the mainsail ; but it did not 
help much. The crank seemed determined to go to the 
bottom; if she couldn’t go on her head she would go on 
her weather side. But there wasn’t a chance. If she was 
too light to sail she was too light to sink, though she was 
about two-thirds under water a third of the time. 

All about us and over the deck the sea boiled, churned 
and streaked. The water ran around over the deck as if 
looking for a low coaming to climb over. 

With my bare toes gripping the grating I reflected 
that the law-abider has all the best of it. He has too. He 
may not have so much that is interesting to remember in 
his old age — but he stands a better chance of reaching 
old age. 

Still, after a fashion we went on. Raulson, the cook, 
his long mustache adroop pathetically, brought me a 
can of coffee. I was touched by this attention — prema- 
turely ; for he whispered to know if I did not have a bit 
of bottle stowed some place. 

I assured him that I did — in one of his fire-holes. He 
said that I did not. He had helped himself to a bottle or 
so when I wasn’t looking; but later when he had gone 
for more, barrel and all had vanished. 

“Then Williams spotted it,” I said to myself won- 
deringly. 

Raulson tried to tell me the story of his life, probably 
seeking spme sort of confessional and absolution, for he 


54 


WILD BLOOD 


was convinced that the crazy buoy which some fool had 
named a Lady was never to reach land. 

But there was the land off our port bow. Whole 
piles of it, rock-ribbed and lined with beaches as if they 
had been the burial ground for enormous giants, whose 
bones the vulturous waves had picked. The white- 
bodied, black-tipped albatross snooped friendily about 
as if to inspect us. They seemed to know that we were 
in a mess, and were disdainful of our company. 

After inspection they floated off with broad, con- 
temptuous flaps. Some sailors say they bring good luck ; 
and I suppose when they wheel away they carry it with 
them. 

Pigeons flocked overhead, bound northward as if to 
tell where the Lady Betty was. Fish would have made 
better messengers, as they could see more of her. It was 
chilly, too, with the wind from the tropics at our back, 
I could barely peep from my swollen eye. 

Williams came up the companion and stood for a 
time slowly turning around the horizon. His face was 
\vorn. The muscles from his bare neck and jaw 1 were 
tight, tense, standing out like braided leather. He 
looked at me, seemed to recognize me as somebody he 
knew and said bitterly: 

“We’re short of food. If you think this is bad, wait.” 

It happened that plenty of provisions had been 
placed on the Lady Betty, but after she got into litigation 
the perishables were removed. And Williams had scant 
chance of provisioning a ship, especially in that part of 
the world. If he put into port he would likely be nabbed. 
All of us would be nabbed. 

There are some things even worse than starving. I 


WILD BLOOD 


55 


have my doubts, however, about a more distressing con- 
dition than thirst, my kind of a thirst. 

Miss Davenant came on deck. She must have been 
having a time of it, for she was very pale. Seasickness 
makes a woman look her worst; but it hadn’t succeeded 
with her. Her face was thin and peaked. But she was 
neat. Her black hair was brushed and caught low on 
the sides of her head and pendent earrings — green — 
swung defiantly from her half-hidden ears. She wore a 
long cloak. I was ignored. 

She braced herself against the boom and stared for- 
ward. I watched her and learned nothing; merely con- 
firmed the former impression that she was beautiful with- 
out looking at all like other beautiful women. Her face 
was too thin and uneven to be pretty, theoretically. There 
was a strangeness about it, as if the Maker of Women 
had fashioned a new type. 

She had the quietness and poise that are disconcerting 
to me, the impenetrableness of one who lives behind a 
mask. She was watching the men housing the masts, or 
seemed to be. I came to know that she seldom watched 
any but one man. 

Williams was after a beach to careen. It seemed to 
me, gazing at the hard, rocky cliffs, that he might as well 
have been looking tor a dry spot on the ocean’s floor. The 
scenic effect was splendid and disquieting. 

The west coast of Tasmania was, and probably still 
is, wild and unsettled. Perhaps it was then wild as when 
the first Dutchman found it, and scarcely more visited. 
Gunboats or steamers would never search for Williams 
there, because no man of sense would buck the Tastna- 
nian seas in a wind-jammer. 

South of Tasmania the great wates roll on, always 


56 


WILD BLOOD 


toward the east. And Williams was supposed to want to 
beat his way westward. He would never have gone down 
in those seas to do it. 

There is no use in telling what I thought. Williams 
did find a beach, exposed it is true, and very different 
from the long, gentle, hard slopes of the Samoans. It 
served his purpose. With men in boats casting leads 
and leading the way, he went up through a narrow 
channel of giants’ bones at high tide; and then — we 
worked like dogs, like the convicts themselves formerly 
thrown on to the island and girdled with bloodhounds. 

Breaming and boot-topping, Raikes called it — the 
cleaning of the Lady Betty's stomach. I called it some- 
thing different. I raided the medicine-chest and found 
three bottles of whisky and some other stuff that smelled 
and tasted a little alcoholic. But it did not go far. 

Chipping barnacles and smearing tallow and pounding 
copper is the sort of work bad sailors have to do when 
they die. Those who have had as much of it as men do 
who sailed with Williams will sit in heavenly taverns 
and work jaw-tackle, and the slated accounts will be 
wiped out by an invisible sponge. 

I passed the bottles around — when Williams wasn’t 
looking. He probably knew. There was little he didn’t 
know about what went on ; but there were times when he 
did not care what else was done as long as work went on. 

Work did go on. He did most of it. Tireless and 
short-tongued, he kept at it — and kept us at it. The 
Lady Betty lost her name, but unfortunately not her sex. 
I don’t believe she ever belonged to the A. B. A. O. P. 
Jones could never have acted like that. She became the 
Sally Martin , and was freshened with white paint; and 
black gun-ports were painted on. That was the usual 


WILD BLOOD 


57 


trick of Williams. If hailed he would sing out that he 
was bound for or leaving some Chinese port. Painted 
ports were as good as guns in keeping off the pirates in 
Chinese waters, if they didn’t come too close. 

As usual, again, when he had got hold of a ship 
known to the authorities, he set about disguising her 
completely, and the brig was re-rigged into a fore-and- 
after. For one thing she would be easier manned; for 
another the Lady Betty had never any business being a 
hermaphrodite brig. Most important, however, was the 
disguise. 

Williams was sailmaker, carpenter, bosun and captain 
all in one. From dark to dawn he worked. 

It would not be truthful to say that the men came to 
like him. People never liked Williams. He seemed 
always repressedly truculent. He was seldom in a rage, 
and then was very quiet about it ; but appeared always on 
the verge of blowing up. His temper was dangerous, but 
it was not a noisy temper. The fellows did admire him 
as well as fear him. He drove brutally but impersonally. 
And there were no favorites, which disappointed me. 

Little Raikes was a surprise. Without having any- 
body give him the authority he gradually assumed the 
position of mate — and kept it. He would not have kept it 
had he not been a worker himself. He was, and a good 
one. He couldn’t have done more if he had an interest 
in the boat. 

But why, I wondered. I tried to talk with him. He 
had nothing to say. He did not appear to retain a grudge 
against me. 

I would have given much of what little I had to 
know what he had overheard from his place under the 


WILD BLOOD 


58 

bunk. But he denied having heard anything. This 
world is full of liars. 

Hawkins, hearty and less awkward than he looked, 
did much to keep the fellows’ spirits up ; or rather to keep 
them from going lower. We lay under a wall of rock 
that had been broken and splintered as if from a Titan’s 
hammer, and the sun did not touch us until afternoon, 
when he struck glittering and warmless; and falling 
farther westward, threw a dazzling sheen from the black 
wet rocks as if the rays struck mirrors. 

At low tide the green-gray and blackened bulk of the 
larger boulders was exposed, cluttered with shell and 
weed-growth, and making the scene even more somber 
than when the tide had thrust itself up and around the 
sand, nosing between rocks and overspreading like a 
sentient invader. There was nothing to buoy the spirit 
in that drear, forlorn place, as for instance in warmer 
seas where sky and water and rocks wear colors, and 
flower-studded foliage thrusts out with prodigal eager- 
ness to give radiance to the eyes ; where the huge-topped 
coconuts droop their feathery leaves, and a soft warm 
purple haze lies like a misty mantle over the distant 
islands. 

Here we lay at the foot of a bleak, wet cliff; over 
the brow shrubs and trees bent, many with roots adangle 
and groping as if frantically trying to save themselves 
from being crowded off and over. The forest above and 
behind us was impenetrable, thickly overgrown and 
matted with a hardy plant-life that had little of the gen- 
erous nut-bearing and flower-offerings of the tropic 
foliage. 

As the men worked their blows were cast back with 
hollow echoes from the cliff, and lifted voices returned 


WILD BLOOD 


59 


to them with mocking repetition. Too, there was the 
disquieting fact of being about work against their wills ; 
bound on a voyage to — they knew not where ; and likely 
to suffer, they knew not what. 

Moreover, there was not all anybody wanted to eat. 
Salt meat and biscuits, with a tincture of potato, now and 
then the flavor of boiled ham, and occasionally some 
canned stuff, with, as a special rarity, a bite of cheese, 
were about all we had. Coffee and tea were ready at all 
hours ; and Williams said that they should be hot. They 
were. 

Davenant had to eat the same fare. That made it 
taste a little better to the rest of us ; and it made the work 
a bit lighter to me to discover him working a bit. 

I overheard Williams telling him that he could, if he 
preferred, do no work; in which case he could tighten 
his belt for his breakfast. Davenant flared, and when he 
used up much of his temper he found the proposition 
unaltered. He protested that he was the owner; and 
was told — 

‘‘You are merely a fellow thief.” 

The fact that Davenant did not own the Lady Betty , 
no matter how honest his original intentions may have 
been, put him in much the same state of piracy with 
Williams, and he had to earn his berth. 

Miss Davenant moved about in a kind of stately 
isolation. She did not complain. She seemed interested. 
She watched with a sort of tense breathlessness when 
there was some hard, dangerous work going on; and 
most of the day alone, remote, she spent on deck and was 
somehow always out of the way. 

Occasionally she would speak to some one of the 
men briefly, impersonally, just a word, a question; and 


6o 


WILD BLOOD 


maybe smile. But the smile meant nothing except a 
frank reward. Yet I wondered if she knew how much 
she did toward making the work easier for an hour or 
two. It is strange how much women do know. 

I watched her at all times when I could steal a view. 
So quiet and so purposeful she seemed in her inaction. 

There was nothing fretful in her attitude, no sour 
petulance, and still no lowering of reserve ; and whatever 
I may have of intuition told me that she was a woman 
who had no scruples and no innocence; yet she was 
pleasant-voiced, steady of eyes. 

“A daughter of the devil,” I repeated to myself, 
pleased with the alliteration and offering myself an 
explanation of the markedly strange personality that was 
not, for all of her reserve — or perhaps was heightened 
by it — without a certain deep, evasive, sinister sugges- 
tion. 

I had not altogether heard her speak a hundred words ; 
I had seen her, except for the minute or two in the light 
of the candle the first time we met, only in attitudes that 
were undistinctive. But there was something strange, 
fierce, audacious, inside of her that looked out through 
her black eyes — eyes black as if darkened by veils to hide 
the woman crouched alertly, patiently, behind the mask. 

She ignored me altogether. Probably because without 
looking directly at me she knew that I watched her. 
Such detection is a gift peculiarly feminine. 

Williams by neither word, gesture nor glance seemed 
to know that she was on the boat. But her eyes when 
he was on deck were seldom off him. n 


CHAPTER IV 


THE WRONG MAN STUMBLES HELL WARD 

P. JONES himself, had he not departed this trou- 
blous life and perhaps come into certain ghostly 
advantages, could not have recognized the Sally Martin 
when she was re-rigged. If one did not know her with 
that disillusioning intimacy that conies from putting a 
paint-brush over her timbers, a good opinion might have 
been formed of her. She looked all right. But the feel 
of her was disquieting. From keelson to truck, from 
forecastle to cabin, from stem to rudder, she was worked 
over. 

Trim and safe and speedy was her appearance. Her 
bow was sharp and her buttocks tumbled home sharply. 
It was probably because of her lines that she had been 
kidnapped in the first place. 

Williams had an eye for boat-beauty, as other men 
have for the next most feminine thing, a woman. 

I have a preference for the ark-like ship, high out of 
the water; and if it needs two guesses to tell her stern 
from her bow, I like her the better. She may ride the 
sea like a sailor on horseback and be stupid at her helm, 
but she won’t be headstrong and full of the devil. 

Sally Martin was reasonably behaved while she lay 
on the beach, turning from one side to the other like a 
lazy lady in the hands of slaves. But we had to take her 
out unballasted, stern on. 


61 


62 


WILD BLOOD 


And she objected. She was warped first in one direc- 
tion, then the other, for rocks were all about ; and there 
was no chance to turn her around on the boulder-bound 
beach. She had been practically embayed by rocks. 

She hung back and tugged like a calf at the end of a 
rope. She was indignant at being hauled out by her 
heels. Finding herself unable to shake her bow loose 
from a running hawser that played over her stem, she 
swayed from side to side, determined to smash her hull 
timbers. 

She nearly succeeded, too. She did succeed in getting 
stuck, coming against a rock — but too gently to serve 
her purpose, being held by the pay of the cable over her 
bow. Nothing was damaged but some twelve hours of 
time. 

It was almost impossible and it was dangerous to lie at 
work near that beach. The surf swirled and leaped, the 
waves — thick-bodied and high-crested — smote the rocks 
and flung their spray as if tossed upward from giant 
hands ; and the surface of the water was boiling foam. 

We took on rock ballast and stowed it — under Will- 
iams's eyes — and overlaid the ballast with timber. Our 
hands were torn and raw, our backs ached, our hearts 
were heavy, our stomachs light. There were no watches 
and no sleep, for when the sun went down lanterns came 
out. 

A dozen times a day almost any one of the men could 
have killed Williams; he was back to them and often 
head down, working hard, harder than any. Something 
more than fear of him held them to a weary dog's life. 

Perhaps they realized that without him there would 
be small chance of getting off the desolate coast; but 
that was less true than that they admired him, even 


WILD BLOOD 


63 


though they hated him. I hated him myself. Hawkins, 
puffing like that well-known puffer, the porpoise, said 
that he would personally add a pound or so to the reward 
for his capture — he was that tired of work. We talked 
disconsolately of the half-filled flour-barrel I had stowed 
in the fire-hole. 

Williams in almost every turn and move disclosed a 
remarkable knowledge of work. He seemed to know 
even the weight of a stone at a glance ; in the same way he 
seemed to know measurements and capacities ; and with- 
out a moment’s hesitation he could tell what and how to 
do anything about shipwork. 

He showed no apparent attention toward anybody. A 
man might be dying without Williams saying a»word to 
him. He noticed though. Try malingering and one 
would see how quickly he noticed. I had seen him stay 
by a sick native all night. Also I saw him send white 
men, tottering from weariness, to bear a hand at heavy 
hauling. He was heartless. 

But at the first sign of weakness from him every man 
on the ship would have instantly become sick. I should 
have. I would gladly have lain down on a deathbed just 
for the chance of a bit of rest ; but not at the risk of being 
yanked up by the ears. 

Fresh water, tea and coffee, we had in plenty. Wood 
was the only thing we found on the island to carry away. 
It had been cut above the cliff and thrown down. Some 
of the men had thought about running away, but they 
were wisely afraid of taking to the strange forest with no 
station or settlement on the coast. But with plenty of 
wood our condensers filled casks as fast as they were 
emptied. 

At last we sailed, dropping away before a light, steady 


64 


WILD BLOOD 


wind that blew south, and when we had plenty of sea- 
room we changed course and began beating northward. 

Naturally we got into rough weather, for nothing else 
could be expected with a dozen Jonahs aboard. Cold 
slatey clouds came low in the heavens. The rain swept 
us like a fusillade. The winds boomed and thundered. 
Each time we went about we were nearly capsized. 

We bucked a heavy sea for two days and a night, 
with me at the helm most of the night — or it seemed like 
it anyway — and I was so soused with coffee that I could 
not sleep for another day and night. 

Williams was on deck practically all of the time. I 
swear what sleep he got was standing, eyes open, on the 
weather side, staring into the rigging. He was stubborn 
as Vanderdecken. Whether, like that Dutchman, always 
beaten back at the Cape, he had cursed God, I do not 
know ; but he never cursed man, wind, sea or luck. He 
was a lunatic. One of the kind that seldom fails at 
anything to which his will is set. 

It was hell, I was sober ; and we were bearing for the 
Bass Strait. Not even a miracle would take us through 
without being sighted. But why care? Besides, nobody 
would expect Williams to sail in that direction. 

I went to him. I could stand it no longer. He was 
working with a book of sailing-directions before him — 
sailing-directions for the lower coast of China, Java and 
the Malay Peninsula, and he ponderingly made notations 
which he afterward wrote into a virgin log-book. 

I was desperate. 

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t care anything about where 
we are going. I don’t care anything about what we have 
to eat. And the other men are about the same. But we 
want something to drink and we have to have some sleep. 


WILD BLOOD 65 

There’s not going to be anything left but ghosts to work 
your ship for you if this keeps up.” 

“Did the forecastle send you?” 

“No. And I’ve got too much sense to admit it if they 
did.” 

Without a word he got up, unlocked a sea-chest, lifted 
the lid. There was bottle on bottle of rum and gin. 

A gleam, that I may have misinterpreted as a gleam 
' of amusement, w r as in his eyes as he said, jerking 
phrases out, that I had forgotten it. That he had had it 
sent down to the beach in the wagon. 

That liquor was always good for trade — implying 
with a glance and a gesture. “If I can keep your hands 
off it.” He said, however, that I could help myself the 
day I found out what Davenant and the woman were 
after at Dakaru. 

“And why does she stare at me?” he snapped, as if 
I had something to do with it. 

“Does she?” My voice was innocence itself. 

“Her eyes are like beaks.” 

I had no sense to say it, but words were always 
slipping out — truthful words. 

“I think them more like black opals.” 

His answer was a short, throaty growl. A pause. 
Then he spoke harshly: 

“Raikes knows. I don’t want to hang him up by the 
thumbs. He’s a good sailor. Not to be trusted — bad 
shipmate. But you find out. A woman always talks — 
if she’s giving away somebody’s secret.” 

“Now listen, Skipper,” I pleaded. “Just a nip or two, 
you know. You can’t expect a sober man to talk to a 
woman like that.” 

I must have mistaken that gleam that I had seen in 


66 


WILD BLOOD 


his eyes. It wasn’t amusement. It was anger. It came 
back again, and words with it. He did not raise his voice. 
His words were hard and dry, and snapped like the 
breaking of sticks : 

I was a drunken wastrel. A club to drive and a bottle 
to lure were the things that had an influence on me. But 
at least I didn’t have the mark of Judas in my hand. 
Find out why they were going to Dakaru — and I could 
get drunk, drunk like the beast I like to be. Williams 
said: 

“I know why I am going to Dakaru.” 

“Grahame ?” 

“Yes, Grahame. But not what you think.” 

And I didn’t know what to think by the way he said 
it. 

But I must find out what they were up to. Davenant, 
he said, was dark and deep and sinister. 

“Coldly evil,” were the words, and he put meaning 
into them. So much meaning that a nervous little thrill 
ran through me. 

“The woman ” 

He did not finish. I knew he felt the curse of the 
serpent was on all women. But no matter who they were 
or what they wanted, he, Williams, would take them as 
promised to Dakaru. 

It was true that an outlaw’s word was all he had left. 

Something made him hate the world and the people 
in it. Out of my own meager knowledge of him I knew 
how unfailingly he had been deceived, abused, had 
treachery come at him, every time he trusted a white man. 

I knew what rumor said of his past : how women, and 
one whom he loved, had used perjury to bring him to the 
gallows; and how he had been hanged and buried alive 


^WILD BLOOD 


67 


(one report had it that a dummy had been buried instead ; 
in quick lime, too) by convict laborers who furtively kept 
him from being smothered until they could secretly dig 
him out. 

Strangely enough, rumor said that she was dark, 
black-eyed — beautiful — and vain. A tenfold revenge had 
smitten her a few years later when a native girl, jealous, 
hacked her face with a knife; and the pretty strumpet 
died of bleeding vanity. The background of the life of 
the man known as Hurricane Williams was tragic; and 
who could have sanity with such memory-ghosts 
haunting the brain? Or trust women? 

“Hawkins,” I said as we leaned against the galley, 
“you’ve made a sighing furnace of many a woman. Tell 
me, how do you win their confidence?” 

Hawkins extended a mandatory hand. Extended it 
with the careless authority of one exercising an imme- 
morial prerogative. I gave him my pouch. He filled a 
diminutive cask that he used as a pipe-bowl, and blew 
a cloud of smoke at the masthead. Sentimental remi- 
niscence overspread his massive face. 

“Women; women,” he said deeply. Paused. “Ah, 
women !” 

A reflective pause. 

“But you can’t tell, though. Blue-eyed uns — ah, what 
liars ! Brown-eyed uns— so hurt if you don’t b’lieve ’em 
when you know they’re lyin’ ! Black uns — you can’t 
tell nothin’ about ’em any more ’an the others. If only 
I had a little somethin’ to swallow! Talkin’ o’ women; 
thirsty work. 

“Give me a bouncing, black-eyed lass; 

Give me a deep an’ steaming glass. 


68 


WILD BLOOD 


When I’m back from the ocean’s roll. 

Aye, give me a broad low tavern bench, 

An’ the soft white arms of a black-eyed wench, 

And the devil can have my soul!” 

“Mercy,” I said. “How cheap our fat Faustus holds 
his soul!” 

Hawkins grunted impersonally. 

“He’s got it anyway. Can’t meet a woman an’ not 
give your soul to the devil.” 

Very meditatively: 

“Yes. If she’s a saint, deeper his claws get into it. 
I’ve met ’em east and west, when I was drunk and when 
I wished I was. I’ve had ’em lie an’ I’ve had ’em talk 
straight, and you can’t tell the difference. So when you 
meet the saint, you think she’s like the others.” 

“The saint?” I said insinuatingly, lifting my brows. 

It was something new to find this fleshy bulk senti- 
mental. I had the impression that it would be diverting, 
though just yet he was a little too earnest to be laughed 
at. Earnest people may be mocked. But even when they 
are ponderously fat it is poor sport. 

Why shouldn’t the distress of women’s love hurt a fat 
man as much as a lean? Is his belly a buckler for his 
heart, so that while we mock the heavily armored man 
that’s pinked, we cry out over the wounds of the naked 
gladiator ? 

“No, friend Burly Ben,” I said to myself; “though 
tears roll down your hilly cheeks I’ll be sympathetic — 
for I enjoy the sad tales of fat men.” 

“I was young once,” said Hawkins. “But al’us had 
a good sheath of flesh for my soul. I danced a merry 
jig to a woman’s tongue an’ bent my back to hones’ work. 
But she wanted to go hellward with a greasy-haired 


WILD BLOOD 


69 


gambler. Told me I was a fool not to know a woman 
wanted somethin’ better ’an a home an’ a cradle to jiggle 
with her foot. 

“An’ I was never young again. . . . God, if I only had 
somethin’ to drink ! . . . 

“Well sir, I met ’em east an’ I met ’em west. Near 
as I c’d tell, they was all like her. Then one day I met a 
blue-eyed un. ’Frisco. Said she loved me, an’ I said: 

“ ' ’Course you do. I got a sack o’ dollars.’ 

“ 'Don’t spend ’em,’ she said. 'Let’s buy a patch o’ 
ground an’ raise vegetables an’ get rich.’ 

“But I called for another bottle.' I was drunk for a 
week, an’ she never three feet away. I was too soused to 
know she stayed sober to keep other people’s fingers out 
o’ my pocket. 

“There was a fight. Somebody poked a gun in my 
hand, an’ I killed him. . . . God, if I could only get 
somethin’ to drink I wouldn’t tell all this ! . . . 

I said nothing. I watched him as a skeptic beholds 
the dead rise. He puffed like a man at work. He was 
throwing something off his conscience. Somehow in the 
conversation he had stumbled, and was falling headlong 
into confidence. He couldn’t check himself. He went 
on : 

“When I come to, she was in jail with a lie down an’ 
sworn to. Said she done it. They let me see her. The 
fools, ought ’o killed me. 

“ 'Why ? Why ?’ I said. She smiled. You know 
how they smile — just so they’ve got what they want. She 
smiled like that. 'Boy, I love you.’ Just that.” 

There were tears dripping down that big, ugly face. 

These men, these men that one meets right and left! 
Grimy and evil and drunken, gargoyles and satyrs; if 


70 


WILD BLOOD 


only they had skylights in the breasts ! But the One who 
looks down sees anyway perhaps. Perhaps, too, He loves 
his outcasts best of all. 

“ ‘Boy, I love you/ To me.” 

He dropped his hands — palms open — in a sort of 
gesture to show how empty he was of anything worth 
anybody’s love. 

“I done my best, but they said I was only tryin’ to 
save her. Save her — why, I thought she was like the 
others till it was too late. She was always kissin’ me an’ 
had ’er fingers in my hair. I thought her just more eager 
’an most to fool me. 

“Her name was a bad one. I guess they can love like 
the others. Maybe the firs’ un loved her greasy-haired 
gambler. 

“She said : ‘Wait for me. I’ll be out soon.’ I said I 
would. I meant it. God, I never meant anything like I 
meant that! But I wandered around, got a long way off, 
an’ other things come up. I’d curse myself all day — if 
I’d think of it — for not goin’ back. 

“At last I turned up. She’d been out over a year an’ 
was dead. Somebody’d broke her head with a bottle. A 
woman, it was. So I couldn’t do nothin’. I’d ’a’ killed a 
man — just so — I don’t know — so her ghost would’ve 
known I wasn’t the kind that forgot everything, anyway.” 

All hands were being roused. We were to go about on 
the starboard tack; and without a word of parting 
Hawkins and I separated to go to our stations. 

As I went toward the poop I glanced up. The sun 
was going down through a gray mist that belted the hori- 
zon, and gloom like a vapor seemed lifting itself from the 
water. Sunset in wet clouds is a dismal hour. 

Above me stood Miss Davenant, looking out to sea — 


WILD BLOOD 


7i 


at nothing. Her long black cape was half-blown back 
and exposed a vivid crimson lining. Tall, braced to the 
wind, motionless, she was more of a symbolism at that 
moment than a woman. And the black cape was lined 
with red. W as that symbolic too ? 

I went directly past her. She turned slightly and 
glanced at me as if I had been merely a noise that 
attracted her notice — as if I simply were not there. There 
was nothing of the artificiality of pretending to ignore 
me ; her thoughts were elsewhere. 

I spoke in passing. “The sun's making a stupid 
death-scene to-night, isn’t he?” 

A little look of surprise — surprise ; nothing more — no 
shade of hostility — leaped into her eyes for a moment. 
Her smile was slight. 

“I like it,” she said. And added: “Oh, immensely.” 

She turned to westward as she spoke, then glanced 
at me. 

Before I could speak again, Williams appeared— he 
had a habit of doing that; not coming, but appearing. 
He shouted and I jumped. 

In the course of the next few minutes’ work I was 
too busied to watch her. 

A man passed me. I spoke to him as Raikes. He 
turned. In the twilight I saw that it was not Raikes but 
a fellow known as Tom Gibson. He had two good eyes, 
but he wore a blue cotton shirt with a daub of tar near 
the middle of the back. It was Raikes’s shirt and fitted 
Gibson. 

He gave me a hand the same as if he had been Raikes, 
and went on forward. 

“McGuire,” said Williams, “take the wheel for the 
first watch. Raikes’ll have the deck. Keep a gun where 


72 


WILD BLOOD 


you can use it — out of sight. Look out for him. I must 
pretend to trust him. Wish I could.” 

He turned away. But I, within his cabin, cast a 
longing look toward the chest. 

“Skipper, for the sad confidence of a fat man, I ought 
to have a nip — or two. Hawkins opened up. I’m not 
coaxing when I say he shook me a bit. He’s got 
another secret too. I’ll get that by and by — why he took 
on with you. He’s dropped hints that make me think 
he knows Dakaru. Too much of a liar to admit it. No, 
he didn’t lie this afternoon about that woman with the 
blue eyes. Listen.” 

I repeated Hawkins’s story; ending: 

“And his words aren’t what rammed a hole in my 
chest. Maybe the girl was drunk when she confessed, 
and crazily — as women do — stuck to it sober. But it’s 
the year and more after she came out. Drinking, you 
know, with every man off the sea ; and asking each if he 
knew Ben Hawkins. Half-breathless for the answer. 
Looking up at every step. Peering at faces in the alley- 
ways — eager. Trying not to believe that he didn’t care. 
Setting her teeth to faith that he at least had decency to 
be grateful. Drinking to keep up hope. Quarreling 
because she was having a fight inside herself. Getting 
sloppier, blearier, and losing that hope. He was like all 
the others, she said to herself. And sinking into death 
under the crack of an empty beer-bottle — with a sigh of 
relief. 

“Women like her, and men like him, feel and have 

pain the same as — the same as I don’t know much 

about God, but I’d rather go to Him, drunken, dirty, 
eaten out with sin, like that woman than like one that 


WILD BLOOD 


73 


never told a He to save the man she loved. An’ I’ve got 
to have a drink !” 

As I talked, Williams stood, legs slightly apart, his 
brows contracted, his eyes glaring in that habitually 
crazed listening manner of his, and awaited the end. He 
always appeared to resent conversation not pertinent to 
immediate work. His attitude, never putting me at ease, 
was disturbing to strangers. Few — none — understood 
him. Some — for there is a streak in men that takes up 
every challenge of manner, no matter from whom — were 
at once truculent. Let the biggest man alive put a chip on 
his shoulder, % and it will be impudently knocked off. ' 
Williams, not wholly unconsciously, wore a chip. Most 
people, either cautious or sensible, not necessarily timid, 
gave him headway. 

I ignored his manner; though not his words. Com- 
mands were things he meant. He was not a bully. An.d 
when he gave his loyalty, his friendship, his word, not the 
combined admiralties of the world could frighten or fight 
him out of it. 

“Too much imagination/' Williams snapped angrily. 

I had talked of a woman. 

“I’m a mummy inside. Skipper.” 

He said that when he gave me a drink it would mean 
a ration for every man. I told him for the love of 
Heaven give it then. That he had a crew of walking 
dead men, too tired and hopeless even to mutter. 

It was largely true. The men did not know Williams, 
did not know the rewards of keeping faith with him — 
that is, of having him keep faith with them ; and so they 
were morally beaten, broken ; no heart was left in them. 
The gibbet dangled before their eyes, and not a glint of 
pirate gold thrilled them for the great chance. 


74 


WILD BLOOD 


He perhaps did not hear what I said, or hearing gave 
it not so much as a thought. A wounded man he would 
nurse on his own knee ; but a man dying of overwork — 
he didn’t appear to recognize any such death. 

I was given two quarts of gin. I took them to Raul- 
son, and word was passed. Nobody believed it, but all 
came. I, lying a bit, told Raulson they were from the 
skipper because he was satisfied with the way the men 
worked; and, as I intended that he should, Raulson 
repeated that. It was like a distribution of medals. 

Not that it made the men love Williams. Far from 
it. It livened them up — the nip and praise — to damning 
him for thinking to buy them cheaply ; but they did not 
mean the damning so much as they had meant the silence. 

And I, watching and listening from a little distance 
apart, turned too late to get a drink for myself. Raulson 
emptied the second bottle of the half-pint remaining when 
all had been served — except myself. He was humble, 
and could afford to be, since three times his share was 
warming his stomach. I cursed to the tune that Hawkins 
was singing interminably in the forecastle: 

“Come, all you brave sailors, an’ listen to me. 

I’ll tell you a yarn o’ the Mary Magee, 

An’ how she went down with her whole com- 
panee ” 

There is nothing that sucks at my bones like loneli- 
ness, when I am sober. The marrow goes out of them 
and I want to crumple like a used rope. 

It is a horrible thing for a man to be thrown on 
himself with nothing to think about but himself. Particu- 
larly when it is dark, black, and the boat drives on, moan- 
ing and complaining, and the wind is hissing as from 
clenched teeth. 


WILD BLOOD 


75 


A small aura of light, not unlike a saint’s wreath of 
beams, spread from the binnacle and gave a little magic 
shelter to my— not fears, but the something in me that 
hates the dark. Vague blurs of white splotched the 
darkness at the points I knew sails were forward. The 
mizzen leaning out on the larboard was more visible, and 
something like a great protective wing. I wished it 
might fold me, hide me, let me sleep indefinitely, and 
awaken when — But why awaken at all? 

The sea bumped and hissed, not ferociously, but 
displeased. Behind us the water closed fussily in our 
wake, a sibilant chorus of froth. Too much imagination, 
as Williams had said. 

I felt we were followed by ghosts, bodiless, impalpa- 
ble, but hissing in a certain weak, futile fury. Among 
them would certainly be a blue-eyed ghost with an empty 
beer-bottle — and blood-covered hair. 

Davenant, stiff and aloof, seemed to want loneliness. 
He had taken the air for a few minutes and gone. He 
was more unbending than ever of late. Nursing, per- 
haps, his injury from Williams’s tongue. It had been 
reckless, crazy, of him to turn for even only a short time 
a man like Davenant to work. 

Not because there was anything degrading about the 
work, but because Davenant was Davenant. Davenant 
■was polite in the way of a man who seems a little startled 
when there is a call for his attention ; as when I spoke to 
him. A casual, “Good evening.” A pause ; a cool 
modulated, distant, but polite, “Good evening” came back. 

There was something about him that seemed awk- 
wardness without being any such thing. A kind of angu- 
larity perhaps, such as inordinately self-contained people 


76 


WILD BLOOD 


have. Davenant had gone — back to his shadows. He 
seemed to like them. 

The devil has a throne of fire, but it is hid in shadows ; 
perhaps if Davenant sat on that throne in his absence 
the devil might wander up and down the earth without 
being missed. Again, too much imagination. Looking 
straight at Davenant, I could see nothing of the satanic 
features in him; but his reflection in my memory made 
me wonder which image it was, his or a childhood trophy 
of reminiscence about the devil ? 

Satan was proud too. Some saint once had him by 
the nose, ’twixt hot tongs. I couldn’t remember which 
one, if I ever knew. Williams would have been such a 
saint as that. 

Somehow there wasn’t anything incongruous to me in 
thinking of Williams as a saint that might have been; 
some of those old warrior saints must have been crazy, 
intense, resolute as he. Imagination — too much of it. 

Raikes came with the slow step of importance out of 
the darkness. He came up and stooped over the binnacle. 
He was talkative. He talked as he looked at the card. 
Everything was going fine, he said, or something like 
it. But if he had the ship he would lay his course a little 
nearer the middle of the strait. No use hovering in sight 
of land. 

I silently remarked how long his nose was; his 
unshaven face was covered with a substance that looked 
more like fur than hair. Splotched, too. The blind eye — 
I had an impression that it wasn’t really blind. He simply 
didn’t need it. Perhaps he could see with it in the dark — 
just open it and close the other, and cat-like look about. 

He was mate now, he said. There was a grin like 
a sneer, too. Was the man drunk? He knew ships and, 


WILD BLOOD 


77 


the sea, he did. No, Williams had not said he was mate, 
but given him the work and a berth aft. 

Williams — Hurricane Williams — “How did he get 
such a bluster of fame?” The question wasn’t sincere. 
Yet Raikes seemed to think Williams wasn’t entitled to 
it — to the fear of men. 

“I had a ship once,” Raikes began. Liar. 
i On he went, lying. He laid a dozen men in gore, or 
maybe only one or two, but spoke of them with that 
swaggering tone that makes dozens, not individuals, the 
unit. He would get another ship one of these days — a 
woman had lost his first for him. Well — on he went. 

What was in the air to make men talk of past women 
this day ? Was I turned father confessor to a ship of 
pirates ? 

I crooked an arm about a spoke and loosened the 
holster inside my shirt. Raikes was a little too amiable. 
Suppose he wanted to step behind me. Mate? It was 
queer. I was at the wheel to kill the mate if 

Something had set Raikes dreaming about a ship he 
never had. Perhaps a lugger, or maybe only a jolly-boat 
stolen when nobody was looking. He might be drunk. 
Other things than sweet biting rum will make men 
drunk. Other things besides women — so I have heard. 

He was speaking of the woman. I couldn’t remember 
what he said at first, or how he brought her in. It wasn’t 
of the woman that had lost him his ship. It was of the 
one on our ship. 

I gave him both ears, but he had nothing to say 
that was important. The importance was in the way he 
said it. As if there were intimacy between them. Aye, 
yes! He knew her secret. Davenant’s too. 

That would make for a feeling of intimacy. 


78 


WILD BLOOD 


He had never seen a woman like her. Well, few men 
had. 

The wind changed slightly and he hurried forward. 
I could see nothing. My eyes, from gazing at the bin- 
nacle, were accustomed to light, so that when I looked 
into the darkness I was little better than blinded. My 
ears seem blinded, too, for the first I knew of her pres- 
ence was her voice. 

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked with that simulated 
flattering interest that is the preliminary of an intruding 
woman. Not that she was intruding. 

She still wore the long black cape, a sort of robe of 
invisibility — for night anyway. The night was her ele- 
ment. There seemed a kinship, a sistership, between 
them. Perhaps my nerves were raveled. 

She came close enough to be touched by my aura. 
Stronger light gave distinctness to the irregularity of her 
face but dimness softened the outlines — not the expres- 
sion — of the face. It was not a soft face, but pretty ; a 
certain evil prettiness. 

There is nothing more irresistible — to some men. I 
am one. The ocean’s bottom is paved with bones of 
others. 

There are men who hate women because they can’t 
help loving them — the women. I can help it; nothing 
like Hawkins’s blue-eyed ghost haunts me. But this 
isn’t of my affairs; so it is more to the point to say 
Williams could perhaps help loving them, too. But he 
seemed simply not to see them. That may be the 
coward’s way out, but it is the safest a brave man can 
take. 

Miss Davenant — Raikes had said a quarter of an 
hour before that her name was Dula. How did he know ? 


WILD BLOOD 


79 


— Miss Davenant talked friendly. I could tell that she 
was not talking about what she wanted. Her lips moved 
easily and she smiled, but her eyes remained coldly 
steady. I felt that the veils of those eyes had been pulled 
aside, that I was looking at the woman — the other woman 
inside of her. But one might as well look from one 
sphinx to another. 

My tongue must have tripped unsteadily, for though 
talking is one of the things I do with the greatest ease 
she made me uncomfortable. If I had not looked at her 
eyes I wouldn’t have minded ; though also I was wonder- 
ing what she really wanted. Why on deck so late to 
talk to me ? 

Bluntly it came: 

“You would do anything for him, wouldn’t you ?” 

Strange, but I knew to whom she referred, though 
his name had not been mentioned. Strange too, but it 
seemed the other woman — the other sphinx that lurked 
behind her eyes — speaking. I had an impression that 
she spoke through motionless lips, as if it was an actual 
voice from within. I evaded her face, and fastened mine 
to the card. 

A warning subtlety suffused me. At times I feel 
myself very clever. Guided a little, too, by her poised 
fierceness, the fierceness of eyes and voice, I surmised 
that she had no sympathy with doing anything for 
Williams. 

For one thing, he had humiliated her father. I had 
no reason then for not supposing that Davenant was some 
one else. For a more important thing, Williams had 
treated her as if her cloak did actually confer invisibility ; 
and, in my experience, nothing more enrages a woman 
than being ignored. 


8o 


WILD BLOOD 


She was not the cold creature of her seeming — of 
her poised appearance. I had only a few hours before 
made one slight friendly advance, and here she was 
back seeking to talk with me, to share a certain famili- 
arity of opinion. 

“Do anything for him?” I half-snarled. “Why 
should I ? I never sleep, you say. How can I ? Work 
and blows, damn him!” 

If she were surprised she did not show it, or at least 
I did not see it. I flashed my eyes at her. She was 
motioness, expressionless, except for a certain hard stare 
— motionless except for the tugging of the wind at her 
cloak. 

“Look at him,” I went on. 

“I have.” 

Her voice was even. It told nothing. 

“No more emotion, feeling, in him than in — in a 
woman who’s lost her illusion.” 

She half-smiled, but not pleasantly. 

“Why should she have no emotion, no feeling, because 
she may have lost what was not worth having?” 

“He hates women,” I said. “All kinds.” 

Just why I said it I don’t know, unless I meant to 
convey further cause for seeming not to like Williams. I 
perhaps intended to elaborate. But I was disconcerted by 
the unexpectedness, the savage little tone, of her quick- 
flung reply. 

“And I hate men — all kinds. That’s part of the 
wisdom of having lost illusions. I distinctly hate 
traitors.” 

She turned away. The wind swept her cloak from her 
side, flung back the crimson lining and revealed her hand, 
and in her hand a knife caught the faint transparency of 


WILD BLOOD 


81 


the binnacle’s aura. She half-turned, but did not look 
again at me so that the wind brought her cape about her. 

I wished I had not been the subtle fool. After all I 
might have known subtleties are worthless against 
women. They are impenetrable — the women, I mean. 
It is like using loaded dice, then betting on the numbers, 
not top or bottom, but on the side. Now I could not 
possibly convince her that I, too, hated traitors. 

Not that it made any great amount of difference what 
she thought of me — so long as that knife was kept at a 
distance. I could not imagine what she had it for. For 
herself ? She, being a woman among men of a kind that 
are not thought to be trusted? She did not appear 
squeamishly fearful; yet since the cape had never been 
off her when she was on deck perhaps the knife had never 
been out of her hand. 

I had lost the chance of getting at her secret, the one 
Raikes inadvertently shared. But I had another. One 
perhaps she did not intend to have me learn any more 
than the one pertaining to Dakaru. 

She did not leave the deck, but stood at the starboard 
rail, the invisible cloak losing her, or all but losing her, 
to my eyes. I saw her more clearly in my imagination 
than I would have done had she been close. I saw her 
symbolically, and symbolism is more vivid than the thing 
it stands for. 

That is, to my mind there she stood, resolute, brood- 
ing, her pale, irregular face framed by black hair, calm, 
cold to appearance, but fierce at heart ; enveloped by black 
cloth, lined with red; and in her hand a knife. Not a 
woman so much as something tenuously palpable and, to 
repeat, symbolic of all women of all time; disillusioned, 
and the more impenetrable for it. 


82 


WILD BLOOD 


It was a chill night and my bones ached with some- 
thing other than cold. 

The next hour passed, I know not how. It stretched 
itself along into time. I don’t know when she had left 
the deck. 

Raikes had come back, singing to himself or rather 
humming. He did not talk with me. He walked to and 
fro, but did not meet her. She was not there. I won- 
dered what was the matter with him. 

Once he made as if to come behind me, but I, alert, 
cried, “What is that ?” and pointed. There was nothing. 
I knew it. But I nearly frightened myself. Raikes, 
catching the alarm in my voice, turned, hurried to inves- 
tigate, peered, asked what I saw. 

“I could have sworn there was somebody there,” I 
said. “And something glinted.” I had to add that. 

He stood looking for some time, not concerned, merely 
idle. He had had no real purpose in getting behind me; 
and I had been cowardly for nothing. Presently there 
was more pulling and hauling; the men came aft, silent 
of voice, shuffling about — perhaps sleepily, but to me it 
seemed something more; lifelessly. 

The watch changed. I gave over the helm. Williams 
was on deck. I knew that I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed 
about, waiting for I knew not what. 

Williams paced back and forth, lightly striding. At 
last he noticed me in the shadow of the companion. A 
hand gripped my shoulder and whirled me about. His 
face came peeringly close to mine. 

“Oh, you!” 

He had thought it might be some one else. It perhaps 
would not have been well with any one else to have been 
lurking there. 


WILD BLOOD 


83 


“No sleep to-night. I’ve got ’em again. Whither 
away ? Ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years at most, to be alive 
and then perhaps be dead. How does it go ? Perchance 
to dream. Tell me what you are afraid of, Skipper. I’ll 
conjure it up. You’ll know how I feel then. I’m 
shivered.” 

He had no sympathy with my recurrent weakness 
when the devil, or as in this case the devil’s daughter — 
bowled me into the dumps. 

“I tell you I believe in vampires,” I insisted. “One 
has been at my veins all night. And the sphinx said she 
hated me.” 

He remarked truly, raspingly, that I talked nonsense. 

“No. Riddles. As one should who has heard the 
sphinx. Listen. I have her secret. Dakaru is nothing, a 
trifle that may fall to any fellow’s ears, as to Raikes’s. 
But this : She loves you.” 

I don’t know what Williams said. It wasn’t a word ; 
it was an exasperated, inarticulate, clipped comment. 
And he followed it up with a ferocious order to get below. 

The three words had hit him in his Achilles’ heel — 
the vulnerable spot. Love of women was to him as the 
flaming shirt some hero of old time put 011 unsuspectingly 
from the hands of a woman — who loved him. 

And I had told the truth. It doesn’t pay. I had told 
her the other thing. That did not pay either. Nothing 
remained but silence — and I had to talk. 

I went below. I went to his cabin, and in dim light 
of the lantern swung from overhead inspected the chest. 
It was locked. 

I looked about for something to pry with. I went out, 
slipped forward for a marlinspike. I would be drunk by 
morning, or 


8 4 


WILD BLOOD 


By the main hatch I stumbled. My foot had struck 
something soft, heavy but with that plastic inertia that 
means a body, a human body. 

I swore, chilled, surprised — aye, frightened. 

My oaths had scarcely cleared my tongue before 
Williams shouted from above. He was like that. I mean 
his response to every situation was so instantaneous as to 
be automatic. ‘‘Good God !” I had cried, and readily, as 
if watching, he demanded who and what? 

“A dead man!” I shouted up, convinced though 
really ignorant; but not ignorant if something beyond 
mere sense of sight and touch is admitted. There had 
been murder in the air. I had felt it all evening, as some 
of those strange wizards of wild islanders could feel the 
coming of storms. 

It was a dead man: Tom Gibson. An inoffensive, 
slight-built fellow ; the last mark one would have guessed 
for the slim knife that reached his heart and stayed there. 
He had no quarrel with anybody; at least none that was 
known. He was not the man to have a quarrel. 

The men came with an air, less of excitement than of 
curiosity. Word passed quickly. Sleepers roused them- 
selves out of the forecastle to look at the dead man and 
wonder. 

A jargon of muttering, surmises, amazement, came 
from the circled group that closed around the two 
lanterns held over his body, while Williams with knees to 
deck bent searchingly over the corpse. 

I broke into the chest before those on deck had lifted 
the body. I drove the cork into the bottle as the easiest 
way to get the liquor out. 

No one will believe it, but I might as well tell the 
truth. I drank a quart of gin more rapidly than I could 


WILD BLOOD 


85 


Have taken so much water ; and in a few minutes it was 
a different ship, a different sea, a different world. A 
warm world — plenty of warmth in it. 

Quickly I slipped the staple back into the chest, moist- 
ened my fingers and rubbed — to give age — the marks of 
the prying it out. And, as often happens in the best laid 
plans of mice and other thieves, I forgot the empty bottle 
as I hurried out. 

There was a light under the door-crack of the room 
Miss Davenant used. Unthinkingly, carelessly, I 
knocked. I knocked again. Had I been then in reach of 
the Pearly Gate I would have as impudently battered at 
it and plucked St. Peter’s whiskers had he frowned. 

The door opened slightly; and she, recognizing me, 
pushed the door wide. She stood there expectantly, 
black cape and all. But there was no knife in her hand. 
I knew it, though I could not see her hand. 

I bowed low and said : 

“You made a triflin’ mistake this evening. It was not 
I you tripped hellward. I just thought I’d let you know, 
so you wouldn’t scream in the morning light — takin’ me 
for a ghost. Good night.” 

I bowed again. 

Looking up, I saw two gleaming eyes and nothing 
more. I heard, “Come in here,” and nothing more. Had 
I been sober I wouldn’t have gone. Had I been sober I 
would never have knocked. 


CHAPTER V 


TO A MERMAID THE WAGE OF SILENCE 

r I ’HERE was scarcely room for the two of us to sit 
**■ down. She did not sit for a time ; how long a time 
I can’t say. I put down the lid of a chest, filled with 
various feminine things, colored and soft-textured, 
folded neatly, and sat on it. 

I leaned against the bulkhead and looked at her, per- 
haps with something of light, triumphant amusement on 
a stupid face — my own. I was not drunk, at least not in 
the full sense of that ambiguous word that means any- 
thing between high spirit and a sodden body ; but I was 
well across the border into an exalted carelessness, indif- 
ference. 

I was but returned to a certain normal state, one from 
which I would never have departed willingly. The 
world could go smash itself against the sun, and I would 
have ridden along jeeringly, my tongue loose at both 
ends. 

Dutch courage? No, not courage at all ; for whatever 
virtues I have had, drunk or sober, the quality of courage 
was not among them. But when that earthenware vessel 
of a body of mine was well moistened, I had the levitating 
sense of being a spectator, an onlooker, free to be impu- 
dent as a gallery god of Drury Lane, and as detached 
from the dangers in the plot when the passions of the 
stage found words and blows. 

86 


WILD BLOOD 


87 


Being close to her, with my feet almost touching hers, 
and a yellow lantern playing the sun in a match-box of a 
room, she still seemed less of a woman, of an individ- 
uality, to me, than the figure in some tableau. Perhaps it 
was because the cape was still about her, for she shivered 
with frozen blood, chilled by something more than 
weather ; and needed warmth. Her lips were tight- 
pressed, as if she were afraid to open them. 

Retrospectively, I have shuddered at my half-hour in 
that cramped space with the murderess; and shaken at 
remembering she hated traitors. There was purpose in 
her ; the purpose that settles down on itself like compact 
coils which a finger's pressure may release. 

"‘What do you want?” she said at last. 

Her lips quivered, her voice trembled — but as a rapier 
shivering from a blow, not tremulous in an unsteady 
hand. That was not what she had intended to say when 
she had ordered me in. It was an equivocation. 

“I? Nothing. Show me your hands and I’ 11 tell you 
again why I came. I’m no palmist to read fortune in the 
criss-cross of a hand’s map. But if your fingers are 
empty I can show where you left your knife; and mine 
was not the red sheath for it — as you hoped.” 

“What do you mean?” she asked unconvincingly, 
perhaps not greatly caring to convince, but falling con- 
ventionally on to that sort of evasion. 

“Why did you send Tom Gibson naked on such a 
night as this to God? Once I gave a withered wizard 
over at Rotuna a slab of tembac and a bottle of brandy 
and he laid magic stuff on my eyes, so I could see through 
such things as cloth and capes. Oh, yes. I can. On 
deck you had a knife. Now you have none. The hilt 


88 


WILD BLOOD 


that studded the body of Tom Gibson is the same — as 
you carried.” 

I had no way of knowing that it was, or rather of 
proving it. But I had no doubt. 

“Who?” 

It was an exclamation. 

I told her again that poor Tom, all amazed and won- 
dering, wrestling with memory to discover how and why 
it had happened, since he was no quarrelsome fellow, 
now stood in the anteroom of Heaven waiting to be 
kicked hellward. Later on, in years to come, she could 
meet him there and apologize; that I would probably 
come too, and sustain her, help convince him that it had 
been a mistake. 

She had both hands to her face, covering her eyes. 
She was shaken, but not sobbing. Not at all. Her eyes 
were tearless when her hands fell away, dropped, and 
her arms hung for a moment loosely as if tied to her 
shoulders. 

“It wasn’t Raikes?” 

.She spoke low- voiced, driving at me a.t one and the 
same time a question and a confession. 

“Raikes !” 

“Wasn’t it Raikes? Tell me! Oh, -wasn’t it?” 

I thought I understood. Raikes, ill-fated, hearing her 
secret through no fault of his, was expected to have kept 
it as only a dead man can. She had made a mistake, after 
all, but I had not been fortunate as I thought, though 
Tom Gibson’s luck was bad as I had thought it. 

She said it was “terrible” and seemed to mean, it, but 
was not broken down. She stared at me, or rather 
through me, in a kind of dazed wonderment ; and seemed 
sincere without being horrified. She put her hands 


WILD BLOOD 


89 


together and the long, pale, strong fingers weaved in 
and out; but otherv/ise for seconds she was motionless, 
looking toward but scarcely at me. 

“All my life I could never do anything otherwise than 
wrong.” Her voice had the vacant, hollow sound of one 
thinking aloud, or addressing one’s self. But as she talked 
she seemed to focus, more and more, her gaze on me, and 
at last was talking to me directly. 

All her life, she repeated, her mistakes had been 
tragic; and, bitterly, she said that long ago she reached 
the point of not caring what she did. Look at her here 
with Davenant! 

Of course, I understood then nothing of what that 
meant. She did not pause to explain. I listened. I 
had the curious sense of detachment, so alcoholically 
pleasant, of unreality; the sense that it was tensely inter- 
esting without affecting a personal contact — as when one 
is a spectator at a tragic play. 

She had watched for Raikes, she had watched closely, 
by the galley. From the shadows, where she half- 
crouched and half-pressed herself into the outline of the 
bench, so as not to be noticed, she had kept her eyes 
fastened on whoever came within the light of the lantern 
hung up there. Hot tea was at hand for whoever wanted 
it — at all hours of night or day there was hot tea or 
coffee. She had seen Raikes come once — seen his face — 
but there were too many people about; she could not 
follow him. 

At last she saw him, just after the watch changed, 
alone — recognized him by the tar blot on the back of his 
shirt though she had not seen his face. She followed. 
She spoke, whispering. He turned — she struck. 

She could use a knife! Oh, how well and for what 


9 o 


WILD BLOOD 


cause! Most damnable, too, if I may be permitted a 
comment. That was why she had been so interested at 
what I had said the first night about Williams and his 
thirsty knife. Another of my lies, come home with a 
sharp beak. 

It was strange, it was impressive, she said, how many 
little things touched her and Williams alike; and some 
big things too. She too was an “outlaw” — her word. 
There was such a thing as fate in the world. Her uncle — 
the father-relation vanished — by sheer accident, fate, had 
engaged Hurricane Williams. 

She hated her uncle — with an almost casual frankness 
she said that. She hated all men, particularly her uncle ; 
but not him so much as — She checked herself abruptly ; 
a glint of alarm passed through her eyes that she should 
have come so close to admitting something, whatever it 
was, that was not to be confessed by even a murderess. 

Davenant was a terrible man. Her family was a 
terrible family. The mother’s side came from Sicily ; the 
grandmother had been born a countess there. Terrible in 
vengeance, she meant ; and with a little pride she empha- 
sized it. She did not put on pride ; it simply emanated. 

But Davenant was more than terrible; the English 
blood, I judged, had evidently given him poise, patience, 
an icy, deceptive shell. She had much the same. 

Davenant could not be trusted — ever. He regarded 
her only as a gambler regards his loaded dice. 

Davenant had intended to kill Raikes. Raikes had 
heard why he and she were going to Dakaru. But the 
devil always keeps his pot stirring: Raikes was a sailor, 
and Williams treated Davenant no better than, no differ- 
ently from, the men he drove. Besides, there was a 
reward for Williams’s head: Davenant would go far 


.WILD BLOOD 


9i 


from his way for money. He was now some twelve 
thousand miles from his home — after money. So in the 
stirring of the devil’s spoon, Raikes and Davenant got 
their heads close. 

She — she had tried to warn Williams. He had 
ignored her. He bruskly turned away when she 
approached, or tried to approach, him alone. 

That afternoon she had gone right into his cabin and 
told him — not listening to his impatient interruptions, not 
paying attention to his manner of turning away from her. 
She had told him, and he had not believed her. He had 
been silent, but his expression seemed to say that she 
was lying for some obscure purpose, such as a woman is 
never long without. 

With any other man, at any other time, in Jier 
disturbed — and disturbing — life, she would have been 
furious. To be treated so ! When intentions were noble, 
at that. And, too, her blood was Sicilian, or much of it. 

But somehow fatalism had spread its black wings over 
her. She recognized Fate, or thought she did. More 
than fate — or as a part of fate — was a blind idealization 
of Williams. Love. She did not say that. She did not 
say idealization. 

"I understand — everything,” was her sentence, not 
nearly so revealing in words as in voice. 

She had, in the course of her interest in Williams’s 
name — both of them had had bitter relations with 
Grahame of Dakaru — searched all of the many articles 
written by returned travelers and antipodean scribblers 
for English papers. Most of these were imaginative ; and 
journalists are inclined to be sympathetic toward the 
picturesque. 

Much that Williams had done, and a great deal that 


92 


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he had not done, had found its way into print ; and more 
than once the purported story of his basic tragedy — the 
woman who sought to have him hanged, who did have 
him hanged — had been told. The frequent efforts to 
betray him on all sides were, more or less accurately, 
summed up from time to time in the press ; and traitors 
that even try to serve the law are likely to find journalists 
unsympathetic. Miss Davenant had found color in 
plenty to heighten her own picture of him. 

She knew more about him, or more of what was said 
about him, than I did. She was tensely interested in the 
fact that no person — and “person” was shaded by some- 
thing subtle in her manner and voice to mean no woman 
— had ever been loyal to Williams. There was some kind 
of a story about how his own mother, at some time or 
other, had been fearfully prejudiced against him. 

And I knew that deep within this tragic Sicilian was 
love of Williams — though she slid the word “love” scorn- 
fully from her lips when it came casually into her re- 
marks. 

Not knowing Williams, she had been alarmed by what 
Raikes and Davenant planned. 

I mean not knowing him as I knew him. 

Not that he was invulnerable. At least I don’t sup- 
pose that he was. People could hurt him, did hurt him. 

But kill him? The man that struck murderously at 
him was nearly doomed if he failed a hair’s breadth ; and 
all had failed. He was sudden in movements and hard in 
blows. 

But it was difficult to understand, for me to> under- 
stand, why he never seemed to hold a grudge against 
anybodv lucky enough to strike at his life and get away 
alive. Some did — if they shot from a distance. 


WILD BLOOD 


93 


She was sitting down, her face framed in her two 
hands that pressed against the cheeks, pressed into a kind 
of symmetry the irregular outline of the sunken temples 
and exposed cheek-bones. 

“What is to become of us all?” she asked, reaching 
over and putting a hand on my knee, and peering at me 
as if I had in some way prophetic sight. 

Her hand returned to her cheek. There was nothing 
helpless, nothing even appealing, about her question or 
gesture. She asked it interestedly, as if I might know; 
but not as if any answer I could make would assist or 
would injure. What is written must be. 

There are some with spirits bold enough to stare into 
the black eye-sockets of Fate — and not flinch. I did not 
think of her as being particularly bold, but as amazingly 
cruel, hardened. 

“What is to become of us all ?” she asked again. 

I ask, how could I know? If we got before a storm 
we would probably have a reef for a tombstone, then 
the mermaids that salted the sea with their tears would 
weep over such of us as were handsome sailor men ; but 
if the fool ship went on then. . . . 

Her hands were lowered on her face ; the chin rested 
on the knuckles ; and by the parted lips and puzzlement 
in her dark eyes I saw her wonder that I could say such 
things at such a time. Below the hair that lay close 
against her temples, I saw the green pendants, twinkling 
in the light, dim as it was. Some way they seemed to 
match her eyes, to be complement to them, though the 
eyes were black. 

“You made me think you hated him,” she said accus- 
ingly, as if by some means, indefinite but nevertheless 


94 


WILD BLOOD 


'responsible, I was concerned in the mistake that tripped 
poor Gibson into death. 

I did not see any connection between the two sen- 
tences. She seemed to feel that one led to the other. 

“Why shouldn’t I hate him ?” I asked. “What has he 
ever done for me? Fished me out of water once. Flung 
me over his shoulder once when my knee was broken by 
a war-club. He backed shooting through the surf to a 
boat of fellows that were afraid to land and help. 
Strapped me flat to my back and let me howl through 
long nights for somebody with half a heart to shoot. I 
hate pain. Things like that: for what? To keep me 
alive ? Think of sleeping forever and forever !” 

“I can’t sleep at all,” she said simply. 

That appeared to be the only thing she heard — my 
comment on sleep. But it wasn’t so. 

After a minute of thought she remarked, as if some- 
thing had been made clear to her, that I owed my life to 
him. I told her I owed a lot of things that scarcely made 
life worth while to him, too. Having to work, for 
instance. 

Her manner, not her voice, asked what was the matter 
with me. Women can’t understand a drunken man, 
unless they know he is drunk; and as alcohol for a time 
goes to my tongue instead of my legs I was the more 
incomprehensible. 

But I gradually realized that wnat she meant by the 
repeated question as to what would become of us, was 
what would be done about Tom Gibson’s murder? It was 
only the disconcerting, haphazard speech from me that 
checked her intentions of getting me more or less impli- 
cated in secrecy, if not sympathy. 

She got to the point deviously, remarking — with a 


WILD BLOOD 


95 


hopeless sigh, resigned, perhaps sincere — that if her uncle 
found it out, well — The rest was left to be imagined ; 
the impetus she gave the imagination shot it straight to 
the conjecture of something unspeakably tragic. 

Then she demanded: “What will he think?” 

She cared more for that answer than for her uncle's 
finding out. 

For some reason I was quiet and made no kind of 
answer; perhaps I was a little drowsy. I had the sensa- 
tion of hearing her only from afar. 

With sudden resolution she got up and threw the cape 
off her shoulders ; and, all crimson, it fell to her feet. She 
had thrown it off to have her hands free ; and to me there 
was something startling, mildly so, in the abrupt reveal- 
ment, for I had not before seen her without that somber 
drapery. 

Her body was rather slender, not thin, but more cer- 
tainly not rounded. She wore a short skirt with a broad 
belt, vividly covered with yellow, perhaps gold braid. 
The full, silken, blouse-like waist was wine-colored. 
Whether excitement flushed her pale cheeks or whether 
they caught color from the red cloth, it would be difficult 
to say; but her face was no longer pale. 

Her fingers snatched, rather than loosened, the ear- 
rings, and with a gesture and a word she asked me to get 
up from the chest. She opened it quickly, tumbled the 
clothes to one side, so that some fell unheeded to the deck ; 
and, coming at a chamois bag, she pulled open its mouth 
and thrust the good handful of glittering things at me. 

“That is everything I have. You won't tell? You 
needn't tell. No one will know, and some day I may show 
how I can't forget when any one does me kindness. 
Once I had — Oh, these few are nothing!” 


96 


WILD BLOOD 


Then remembering that she was driving a bargain, 
corrected herself. They were not nothing — only by com- 
parison. The earrings were valuable. All the stones were 
genuine. She would never have paste — never! Her 
contempt was not theatric. 

I took a step backward. 

Was I refusing? It was everything she had. Besides, 
no one need know. 

I shook my head. What the devil, I asked, could I do 
with the stuff? Natives didn’t know gems from glass, or 
care for gold more than for brass, and my sole use would 
be in gifts or trade. Sell it? What for? Money? 

I was getting tangled, or rather losing my sense of 
detachment. She was bringing me, so to speak, on to the 
stage. I don’t like to talk when there is need for serious- 
ness. I am awkward. I feel implicated, caught. 

Besides, what was there to be bribed for? I knew 
better than to tell Williams a woman had done murder on 
his ship ; and who else was there to tell? 

Her seriousness was inescapable. She was aroused. 
To her this appeared a fair bargain, not so much because 
of what she was buying as because of what she was offer- 
ing; that is, everything of value that she had. If the 
widow’s mite, or the rich man’s load that pyramids the 
camel’s back so it can not pass the eye of a needle, be all 
that can be offered as a purchase price, one is expected to 
consider the sacrifice rather than the value. 

Why did I refuse? Did I think there was something 
more? Bah — I was like all men! What did I want? 
Name it. 

For a last time, would I or would 1 not accept ? Look, 
this was gold and precious stones — and the glittering 


WILD BLOOD 


9 7 


trinkets were plucked up and dropped temptingly 
between her long fingers. 

There was a hard glaze over her eyes. She was ter- 
ribly in earnest; the dormant southern blood was foam- 
ing ; an idea, a determination was in her brain. 

I was not afraid. It was later, when I was sober, 
that I had chills over it ; and of course when drunk I am 
rarely sincere. Never so when sober. 

I have too sensitive an appreciation of the dramatic 
not to have known what I was doing. Besides she was a 
woman, and a woman draws bravado to the surface. 

All the gallantry in the world, I suspect, has.been, not 
through courage, but to impress woman. Men are gallant 
at times when no woman is around because they remem- 
ber her. 

So, suddenly exalted by the opening of a full-blown 
idea in my own head, I extended my hand, took the 
chamois sack and pulled tight the thong. For that second 
she had the intent look of one who has thrown a rock at 
a mark, and stands in concentration awaiting the result. 

I turned my back on her, loosened and opened the 
window. Through the port went bag and gems, and a 
flap of spray came back in that sentient, accurate way 
that ocean water often has. Salty drops besprinkled my 
face. Perhaps a mermaid gratefully splashed her thanks. 

I closed the port and turned to Miss Davenant, myself 
again. The dervil, I told her, had bought me long ago ; 
it was superfluous to force pay on to me for any work 
of his. 

She was not used to the truth, at least not used to 
having it from men. She demanded why I did that. Her 
anger was apparent, but she suspended judgment for a 
second or two. 


98 


WILD BLOOD 


What did I mean by that ? Why, I meant that I hadn’t 
lost enough sense yet to weigh down myself with stuff 
that some fool might want, and crack me over the head 
to get. 

What did she want? Silence? Couldn’t she have it 
as well with her rings in the bottom of the ocean as in the 
bottom of my pocket ? She could have it as well with them 
on her fingers ; but a woman never feels she has got what 
she really, deeply wants unless she suffers. 

Good-by — and I went out. 

I was a little unsteady, but, too, the ship was rolling. I 
went on deck, ascending the stairs with great deliberation. 

On deck I saw two forms about a lantern. I 
approached. They were talking. 

Davenant held a knife in his hand. He was examining 
it, and Williams held the lantern almost against the knife. 

“As I said,” Davenant remarked, slowly turning the 
knife back and forth, “this looks — this is hers. Not that 
she wouldn’t use it — her grandmother came from Sicily. 

“This is very queer — very queer. Dula never spoke 
to the man in her life. I am sure of that. You don’t 
think — ” Davenant broke off. 

“One of my seamen has been murdered,” said 
Williams coldly. “I’d swing whoever did it from a yard- 
arm.” 

He said it not as a threat but as a statement, as he 
might have said: “I’d pitch any man over the side that 
refused to obey orders.” 

He might do that; but the chances were he would 
jump over and fish the disobedient one out. But the 
Sally Martin didn’t have a yard-arm. A mere technicality 
perhaps. I might call his attention to it later. 


WILD BLOOD 


99 


“Your justice is severe,” said Davenant. The sneer 
was subtle. 

I came from the shadows, talking: 

“Inquest? What have we here? Well, well, a knife. 
Gibson was about your build, Skipper — in the dark, you 
know. A good strong hand sent home that blow. 

“Well, well, what a sharp knife ! Miss Davenant early 
in the evening told me she’d lost a knife. Right out of 
her room. Stolen. Wonder if ’twas this one? 

“Who could have done it? What’d you think, Mr. 
Davenant ? Somebody mistook poor old Tom Gibson for 
the Skipper? 

“Miss Davenant said the knife was an heirloom. 
Looks like one, doesn’t it ? Is it hers ? Oh, it is ? Now 
who could’ve been snoopin’ around in her cabin? 

“A knife, she said. Didn’t know she meant a youthful 
cutlas. 

“By the way, Mr. Davenant, Raikes has been boasting 
a good deal about — But you understand, no doubt. He’s 
dropped hints that — And he’s the sort of fellow that 
looks at home dangling from the end of a yard-arm.” 

Davenant, with an ill-concealed trace of anxiety, asked 
what Raikes had said. 

“Said? What could he say? Nothing, more than I 
to whom you have also been — ah — polite. 

“But the manner of the man, his hems and haws, and 
the wise winking of his lone eye — Why, sir, to see 
Raikes strut it, you’d think that you, the owner, conspired 
to make him captain though the scuppers ran blood. He’s 

a rascal, liar and cutthroat, like myself, so I 

know ” 

“Stow that nonsense,” said Williams, his voice steely 
and final. 


100 


WILD BLOOD 


He always gave orders, big ones and little ones, in 
just such a voice as Joshua must have used when he 
commanded the sun and moon to stand still. So I went 
off and to bed, but being too sober to sleep I dreamed. 

Many things happened in the following days, and none 
of them important. 

The first thing that happened to poor Tom when he 
came blundering into this world, much as he had 
blundered out of it, was to be swathed in flannel by a mid- 
wife; and the last thing was to be swathed in canvas, 
sewed snugly in by Hawkins and myself, with a link or so 
of iron chain at his feet to make sure that he went toward 
the place where he belonged. 

Over he went, feet first. The only prayer that went 
up was a suppressed, strained, “God forgive me !” from 
Miss Davenant, who, again in her black cape, with a 
black scarf thrown over her head and tied around her 
face and neck so that little was seen but her eyes, stood 
on the poop looking down. 

I was near her. No one else was near enough to 
hear ; or if he had heard was near enough her secret to 
understand. 

Over he went with a heavy relieved sound at the 
water’s surface, like a great sigh. For two seconds, 
scarcely longer, there was a hushed, solemn pause as our 
eyes strained at the white streak passing from sight in 
the green crystal waves, edged with foam. 

Williams shouted, quickly, throwing words as if he 
flung them with his hand, and stood watching, somberly, 
critically, as the men moved to their work. The burial 
service, such as it was, was over. The Sally Martin was > 
cracking on her way. 

And we poor futile fools went on with the sweat and 


WILD BLOOD 


IOI 


sins of life, though do what we might and fight as we 
would, in our own time we would follow poor Tom. 
Whither away and why ? Perhaps he already had 
learned, and smiled in drowsy faint scorn to think how 
men hung on to life. 

Most of that day Miss Davenant stood very quietly 
by the rail and looked down into the sea. But most of 
other days she had done much the same ; yet the differ- 
ence was enough for Llawkins to remark it. 

“She feels bad 'cause it was her knife," he offered me 
by way of enlightenment. 

She found a moment to say that she did not under- 
stand, but she thanked me. A kind of strong inquiry was 
in her eyes, a doubt as to whether I had had motives of 
my own for saying what I had to Davenant and Williams ; 
and if so what were they? She seemed a little uneasy 
rather than grateful, as if used to having to pay in pounds 
of flesh for every service done her. 

Somehow I was less touched with sympathy than by 
something else, something not fear or distrust but having 
to do with her inordinate composure, which I knew very 
well was much like the composure of a serpent lying in 
motionless coils. Woman learns patience the last of all 
things; and it is terrible, this conjunction of coiled 
patience with woman’s unreasoning, unheeding, immo- 
lating passion. She seemed not to invite sympathy ; less 
because she was unentitled to it, than consciously to repel 
it as something worthless, unusually insincere. 

“I was angry last night when you threw my things 
away. I don’t understand yet. But I thank you.’’ 

Her lips scarcely moved. 

“He’’ — meaning Davenant— “said it was a good 
thing I mentioned having missed the knife to you.’’ 


102 


WILD BLOOD 


Then, as if reluctantly convinced, but with the shadow 
of doubt or two lingering: “You are clever.” 

I admitted that I was. She looked at me again, 
her doubts increasing. 

“I don’t understand you,” she said, not inviting confi- 
dence, but being frank. And she added reflectively, as if 
it was after all the really important thing, “I do under- 
stand him” — meaning Williams. 


CHAPTER VI 


BOILINGS AND BUBBLINGS AT DAKARU 

'TWO weeks later life was still unchanged on the Sally 
Martin , though I had acquired wisdom with every 
passing hour, and the chest in Williams’s cabin had a 
new lock. 

But that was putting new bolts on the stable when 
the mare was gone. I had a dozen bottles stowed when 
the new lock appeared. 

Williams said nothing. He had other things to think 
of, and not the least was a false log into which I peeped 
from time to time. Precious little good wasting all that 
time imagining weather and knots from Singapore when 
he had no clearance papers. But it was his neck the 
gibbet beckoned for. Not mine. I’d swear I was a 
pressed man. 

I was nearer a mutineer than anything else. 
Plawkins, too. We were leagued with Davenant. Only 
Hawkins did not know it. Raikes had gone over to 
Williams, and carried warnings about us. 

Davenant was going to divide the wealth of Grahame 
of Dakaru among us. He would more willingly have 
divided his sheet to make us a funeral shroud, only it 
would have taken more than one sheet to encircle 
Hawkins. 

Understand me ; Davenant was not so much of a fool 
as he may appear. I had, with the few well-chosen words 
103 


104 


WILD BLOOD 


already set down, broken off his relations with Raikes, 
much to the regret of both. 

Davenant could not trust him longer, and Raikes 
might call me — as he did — a liar, a black liar, a thrice 
doubly damned liar; but that Raikes had not kept his 
secret was evident in my repetition of it. 

It happened that Davenant was, in addition to having 
some hate of Williams, afraid of him. When a pirate 
and a gentleman sit down to a roast fowl, there is no 
doubt as to who will do the carving. Davenant felt him- 
self the gentleman. 

Hurricane Williams was about the last man he would 
have picked for the voyage, because at Dakaru he thought 
there was a fine estate and much wealth ; and some people 
feel that it is better to fail than to share. The discovery 
that it was Williams, and not some obscure sailing-mas- 
ter by the name of Moore, caused Davenant to be melan- 
choly and wish for a way to get clear from what by com- 
mon report was an exceedingly dangerous man. 

Common report is as much to be trusted as an heir's 
tears, though in his case there was some convincing evi- 
dence. The man who once blew over a cliff and land- 
locked the gunboat of a very proud European power is 
likely to have a reputation. Williams had done that, and 
some other things that made the Germans want his head. 
In those days the Germans wanted almost everything in 
the South Seas; since then the want has grown, also 
diminished. 

Anyway, Williams was known as a pirate; and 
Davenant must have felt pretty much like one who 
fishes for rock-cod and finds himself in possession of a 
shark. 

The belief that Raikes was something of a navigator 


WILD BLOOD 


105 


had encouraged a mutual understanding. The fact that 
Raikes knew what Davenant was up to at Dakaru assist- 
ed in the understanding. What would ultimately have 
happened to Raikes had best be left to the imagination, 
for he was only an ignorant, greedy fellow. 

About the time that a new lock appeared on the chest 
in Williams’s cabin a thing took place that rather gave 
coloring to certain hints I had been dropping, when 
chance offered, into Davenant’s ear, i. e. that I hated 
Williams. What I really hated was not to find out why 
Davenant and his sinister niece were laying so myste- 
riously their course for Grahame’s “empire.” Miss 
Davenant had retired into incommunicable reserve. She 
spoke and passed, or passed without speaking. 

We ran into a bit of good weather ; and the sun being 
warm, the wind steady, and Hawkins having the wheel 
and the deck to himself, I approached, gave him what 
was left in a bottle, and we fell into an argument about 
something or other. There was a woman in it, I know. 
There is a woman in all the troubles that come to men. 

Davenant came up and took a seat by the rail, but we 
did not notice him. We did not notice much of anything, 
and the Sally Martin , being always up to something, 
veered from her course and was in a fair way to go stern 
on when Williams appeared. 

Without warning, without a word, his iron fist 
crashed on Hawkins’s head, and the ox-like man went to 
the deck with a grunt. Williams swung his weight to 
the wheel and brought her around, then gave me the helm 
and such a look as made shivers ripple from neck to heel. 

Hawkins got up dizzily, ragefully, saying something 
about no man could treat him like that. Williams — 


io6 


WILD BLOOD 


braced, feet apart, knees slightly bent and neck drawn in 
— waited. 

Every man forward had suddenly found some reason 
to be on the rigging or forecastle. They probably wished 
afterward that they had had wit enough to rush the poop 
and choose a new captain; but men have to be prodded 
and welded into organized action, even into mutiny. 

And Williams had to accept a fight whenever it was 
offered. Nothing but praise and reward would await 
any crew that overpowered and brought him into port. 
The fierce laws that uphold the captain on the high seas 
denied to him their support. He was an outlaw ; and men 
took his commands because they were afraid of him, not 
because they were afraid of some obscure, vague judge 
in a distant city with powers of death and imprisonment 
between his teeth. 

Hawkins, powerful, huge of body, murderously 
aroused, came at him — and was met more than half-way. 
I feared a knife-flash, for Williams was deadly in a 
corner ; and nothing could have seemed more of a handi- 
cap than to be in front of that enormous fellow, who, even 
though setting down much of his weight to fat, was still 
powerful. 

Williams did not dodge or duck. He refused such 
artifice of fighting. He seemed to have the uncanny gift 
of being able to precipitate himself headlong, as if 
thrown; such was his rush then. An iron-taloned left 
hand closed like a dog’s teeth on Hawkins’s neck, and the 
overhand drive of the right arm smote again and again 
before Hawkins, awkwardly but powerfully, clawed 
Williams to him with crushing embrace and lifted him 
clear of the deck. 

So rapidly as almost to elude perception, Williams 


WILD BLOOD 


107 


brought a knee into the bulging belly, and, releasing his 
left hand, struck a short blow with the point of his 
crooked elbow at the base of Hawkins’s jaw. Both men 
went to the deck together, but Hawkins did not get up. 

Williams waited, his tense face more fierce than ever, 
and his hand slipped inquiringly to the sheath at his side. 
He was breathing hard, but with deliberate evenness. 
Men dropped from the rigging and hurried silently out 
of sight. 

Hawkins, hand to jaw, reelingly sat up. His eyes 
were dazed and scarcely open. He muttered gutturally, 
plainly: “Damn you, I liked you!” 

Then Williams did an accountable thing, for him, so 
unbending and molded in a sort of steel-like rigidity. He 
said: “I still like you. But you two fools are on a 
ship. Not in a barroom.” 

That night Hawkins and I talked it over. I assured 
him with some sincerity that he had come off with the 
greater luck. 

For one thing, Williams had spoken with me alone 
for about two minutes. What he said was neither abusive 
nor pleading, but that I, who had been near him so long, 
would drunkenly meddle with a man on watch was sur- 
prising; he did not expect discipline, but he would have 
obedience — and punishment. 

It hurt, for this was the man who would throw his 
life into hazard time and again for anybody that had even 
so faint a claim on his friendship as I ; and in more ways 
than a half dozen I was his debtor. I knew he was fierce- 
tempered and merciless in every way except at heart. 

Those two minutes hurt more than what followed; I 
went aloft with a tar-bucket. Every dirty job from 
dumping slops to swabbing the galley was given to me. 


io8 


WILD BLOOD 


Though he could scarcely swallow and had a swollen 
nose and 'battered cheek, I told Hawkins he came off the 
easier ; but at that moment we were both nursing a sense 
of outrage. Williams had gone too far. There was no 
doubt about it. 

“Wouldn’t wiggle my little finger to save ’im,” said 
Hawkins thickly. His articulation was impaired for a 
time. 

“This is my last trip,” I said. “He’s planning to make 
some port some place in the islands. Making a false log. 
We’ll get away there somehow.” 

“Don’t mind the last heatin’. I ask’ for that. But 
catchin’ me when I wasn’t lookin’. No. I’m mad.” 

Pause, while we meditated. Then — 

“Where does he get it, anyhow?’ 

“That’s why they call him a hurricane. Ought to see 
him when two or three jump him at once. But he hit you 
when you wasn’t looking. He just goes crazy when he 
catches anybody soldiering. Times, I’m afraid of him. 
But he didn’t use the knife. I was afraid.” 

Then Hawkins talked. He had been to Dakaru with 
Carp Taylor, slaver, the same that Williams had once 
caused to disembark a load of black boys. Grahame and 
Carp Taylor were not friends, perhaps, but they had 
business dealings. 

Nobody was a good friend to the brutal, sour, villain- 
ous old Grahame. A thousand miles from nowhere, Gra- 
hame did as he pleased. Planters not so far away from 
consuls and governors did pretty much the same. Gra- 
hame treated his dogs better than the natives. Most men 
did treat dogs better than natives. 

The best thing that could be said of Grahame was 
that probably he was no cannibal. He was everything 


WILD BLOOD 


109 


else. No doubt he would have been that, too, if he could 
have got hold of Williams. He said — or was said to 
have said — that he would cut Williams’s heart out and 
eat it raw. 

Hawkins saw what went on at Dakaru. He heard 
what Carp Taylor and Grahame said of Williams, and 
had decided that Williams must be pretty much of a man 
to fill fellows like that with anger and fear. 

Grahame had built himself a paradise on top of hell. 
He guarded it with Portuguese and hounds. The scoun- 
drel must have had some kind of a sense of beauty, for 
he had a big house and gardens, all manner of flowers 
and shrubs, many imported, and it was said — though who 
had been inside to report truly I do not know — that the 
house was filled with treasures and also held a won- 
drously beautiful girl. The native servants may have 
regarded iron pots and copper pans as “treasures.” 
Anyway, rumor gave him wealth, enormous wealth ; but 
no money. He paid for everything in pearls, and 
defended his fishing-grounds as if they belonged to him. 
He had groves of coconut-palms, but never sold a pound ; 
long avenues of bananas, and fed the fruit to hogs ; sago- 
palm groves and cacao, pineapple-fields — and most of it 
was wasted. He would sell nothing. He did not want 
strangers around 

If a gunboat came casually, or to inquire into certain 
stories that missionaries heard from a distance and 
repeated insistently, Grahame — it was said — would re- 
ceive and entertain the officers, show them the planta- 
tion, so beautifully cared for, give the crew all they could 
eat and carry, call up the “negroes” and let them tell their 
own stories — through the Portuguese overseers. The 
officers would sail away, satisfied in every particular 


no 


WILD BLOOD 


except in failing to have seen the legendary white girl of 
Dakaru; and on the same evening the natives that had 
complained would be shot. 

Didn’t they get enough to eat? Didn’t they have 
tobacco and meat and fruit and fish, all they could cram 
into their capacious bellies ? What if they were whipped 
and knocked about for being lazy? They were being 
civilized. The savages. Supposing they never were 
allowed to return to their islands; what more did they 
want than they had ? 

“I heard ’im say it,” Hawkins muttered. “Him an’ 
Carp Taylor was standin’ down by the native quarters 
waitin’ for two blacks that had been caught out at sea 
in a canoe. Runaway. No place to go, but they went 
anyhow. A big bloodhound was rubbin’ a flabby ear 
’gainst his leg, an’ he reached down an’ rubbed its head 
an’ went on cussin’ the boys for tryin’ to get away. 

“They was brought up. Hands tied behind ’em — two 
old fellows. A little black Portugee, spittin’ like a mad 
cat, whipped ’em up — an’ Grahame shot ’em. 

“I saw ’im. Just like that — bing-bing, he shot ’em. 
’Fore they could get to their knees to ’im. 

“Then he cussed ’em. Said no more black boys’d try 
that. Carp Taylor, he laughed.” 

And I told what had taken Williams to Dakaru. A 
half-drunken blackbirder told a good story on the wharf 
at Auckland one night. Williams was there, saying noth- 
ing, wearing a beard and waiting for a shipment of 
dynamite from Sydney — and holding up a trader that 
had agreed to take him and the “trade goods” around to 
a little island in Carpentaria where Williams had a boat 
hid. 

The drunken slaver told his story: How Graham^ 


[WILD BLOOD 


in 


had run across him and wanted natives ; and, having a 
crew of Samoans, he sold his crew. It happened that 
Williams was the close friend of a Samoan chief, that 
he knew the islands as well as he knew his own deck, that 
he used Samoan sailors altogether if he could get them ; 
and in more ways than it would take a week to tell he 
was a man the Samoans liked and trusted. 

Something happened to the blackbirder that night. It 
may be he fell and broke his neck, or it may be somebody 
pushed him, or possibly somebody just caught the top of 
his head and twisted it around till his neck cracked. Any- 
way, something happened. 

About three months later something also happened at 
Dakaru. A drab little schooner, carrying about three 
times too much sail for her size, puffed in. Gash, slap, 
splash, boat after boat began to leave her — boats full of 
natives with rifles. 

Grahame’s own schooner was in the bay, a long trim 
little craft, swinging at her moorings as if rocking herself 
to sleep. She was wakened in a hurry, though. Two 
boat-loads of natives made for her, and were all over in 
a minute just as if they belonged there. I suppose they 
did — they had come to stay on her anyhow. 

About the same time the long-boat and twenty natives 
and two white men hit the beach — and they didn’t stop. 
A Portuguese or two and some dogs got in the way, and 
died. There was yelling and howling and the cracking 
snap of rifles going off every which way. It sounded like 
hell with Grahame’s soul just arrived. But he didn’t 
show up, then. 

“Up the road of coral sand we went,” I told Hawkins. 
“Bright-flowered shrubs went down under our feet. We 
saw the eight-foot coral wall that circled the house, like 


1 12 


WILD BLOOD 


miniature battlements about a city — Grahame had been 
working his black boys to death for years at one thing 
and another. 

“We would have gone over that like a cat goes over a 
fence, but there was no need. The grilled iron gates were 
swung back, and beyond through the foliage we could see 
the big squat house. 

“But we didn’t go through the gate. Right there in 
the center of the driveway stood a girl. I had heard 
about her, too. The girl that didn’t exist. The sort of 
legendary saint of Dakaru — that no white man had 
looked on. Portuguese aren’t white. Not the kind Gra- 
hame had. 

“Some kind of a thin blue silk robe was about her, one 
hand catching it up and holding it against her breast, the 
other hand half-raised in a little gesture of alarm. 

“I’ve thought about her. One has lots of time to 
think at sea. Too much. And I tried to remember how 
she really did look. Her hair was yellow and her eyes 
were dark. That’s about all I can say for sure — except- 
ing there was a look on her face like a child that 
hasn’t known fear, being suddenly awakened. 

“She was only a child. I don’t know anything about 
the ages of women, but she was a child. Not more ’an 
sixteen or seventeen. Maybe less. 

“I caught the hazy impression of two native women 
peering frightenedlv from behind a brilliant screen of 
hibiscus. 

“Williams stopped abruptly and we pressed against 
him, circling and almost surrounding her. Most of the 
natives had heard something about angels. Missionaries 
always give angels blonde hair. I don’t know why. This 
was the first one they had seen. 


WILD BLOOD 


ii3 

“She was surprised. She was startled. But she 
wasn't frightened. One’d never have thought there were 
devil Portugees and bloodhounds and a lot of bruised 
backs — even if the bellies were full — around there. 

“'Where's Grahame?' said Williams. 

“You know how he would have said it. Just as if he 
had grabbed her by the neck. 

“ 'Father’s gone for a ride — over there.' 

“Ffer white arm slipped from the loose sleeve and 
pointed, but her eyes didn’t follow her gesture. 

“ 'Why, what is the matter ?’ she asked tremulously. 

“Williams hesitated. You know, as a matter of prin- 
ciple with him — if not memory — he never believes a 
woman. 

“For a minute I thought he was going to strike her 
aside and go on. She stared at him with alarm showing 
more and more on her delicate face. She realized that he 
was a terrible man. Maybe she had read of pirates. It's 
said Grahame's house is full of books. 

“Williams whirled around. He's abrupt as lightning. 
He snarled two or three words, and off we went again, 
cutting across the grounds for the native quarters. 

“We saw two or three figures scooting at a distance 
and yelled. It scared 'em the more. 

“We started searchin’ the houses and found two or 
three women trying to hide under mats. They said the 
men were working on a road about a mile off. Yes, 
there were Samoans with them. 

“Off we started again, panting and straggling out. 
Two or three Portugees came nearly meeting us. They 
had come down the road to see what was going on. They 
turned and ran, shooting wildly and yelling worse. 

“We came on to some black boys that had been at 


WILD BLOOD 


1 14 

work, now scared half to death ; but in about two seconds 
others began to pop from behind trees and out of the 
bush. There was an excited jabber of slaves and 
rescuers. 

“Grahame had at least seventy-five black men, and 
about ten of them were Samoans. He had killed two. 

“When word was passed they were to be carried off, 
those fellows — all of ’em — went crazy. Some from the 
Solomons. Many from Santa Cruz. Bad fellows. They 
wanted to burn everything and — You know. It wasn't 
Grahame only. It was the Portugees too. And the white 
girl. 

“Bad natives are the most vicious beasts under the 
sun. Williams knows it — only he says whites ought to let 
'em alone. 

“There was a fine boiling and bubbling of trouble, 
I can tell you. The Samoans were all right; they are 
always all right. But the others were excited. They’d 
been beaten and kicked around, chewed by dogs and — 
well, they were dead set on just tearing the top of that 
old island off and making a grand stew of Portugees and 
Grahame. 

“There was a hubbub in more tribal languages than 
wrecked Babel. They grabbed axes and picks and shov- 
els, trying a war-dance and whoopin' it up as if the pot 
was already boiling. 

“Right then an' there, I sympathized with Grahame, 
his Portugees and hounds. He must have known he was 
sitting on top of a volcano, and we’d come along an' let 
the black men blow up. 

“We weren’t in danger or anything like that. If a 
fight started there’d be more dead cannibals than were 
already buried at Dakaru. 


WILD BLOOD 


US 

“It was that girl at the gate that saved Grahame. I 
can't look very far into Williams's brain, but I have an 
idea if he hadn't run into that vision he would have gone 
off with his Samoans and left Grahame and his Portugees 
to fight it out. The first thing the wild blacks would 
have done was raid the house. 

“As it was, there was no wastin' time trying to herd 
up that crowd. They were scattered in groups and raced 
about, yelling. 

“Back on the run we started, and I wasn't as near 
the rear on the return trip as I’d been coming. I didn't 
want to get to straggling among that crazy mob of 
cannibals. 

“It's not easy to tell about. Some of the Portugees 
were shooting from away off. The naked natives were 
galloping around brandishin' picks and shovels — and a 
Solomon Islander and Santa Cruzian too usually has 
a bone through his nose and a face like a hell-fiend. 
Chipped teeth, and bushy hair, and clattering shell beads 
around his neck. Missionaries say they have souls, these 
devils. 

“Up to the wall about the house and garden we went. 
A big cannibal streaked through the gate, waving an ax. 
He was going to be first. Williams shot him, then 
whirled the rifle around and clubbed down another that 
was boltin' past. 

“In a minute he had a guard at the gate, and we were 
running through the grounds inside to find what other 
entrances there might be, and guard 'em too. We saw 
no one inside. The girl must've been frightened by that 
time. 

“We did not go to the house, but a kind of cordon 
was thrown around it to finish an y^ energetic cannibal 


n6 


WILD BLOOD 


that got over the wall; and Williams and I went back 
to the iron gates. 

“The cannibals had us outnumbered two to one, but 
what are numbers? More targets in a case like that. We 
could see that the fellows on board the schooner had taken 
her from the mooring and were tacking — it was an open 
bay with a bare arm of reef stretching out as a break- 
water — to bring her ’longside of our boat. The canni- 
bals were celebrating at a distance, settin’ fire to their 
quarters and yellin’ defiance at us. 

“There was a pretty situation for you. The sort that 
Williams is always into. He defending Grahame’s 
daughter and property from blacks he himself had 
released and wanted to carry off. 

“He tried to make them understand that they would 
be taken to their own islands if they would gather down 
at the beach ; but he might as well have talked to a whirl- 
wind. Pretty near everything he gets into doubles around 
with some kind of ironical twist, like that. 

“Moreover the Samoans, who can be stubborn, were 
saying they wouldn’t have them savages on the same 
ship; and were stealing pot-shots at the war-party. 

“It was a mix-up to make Satan himself wriggle about 
in joy; and even I grinned when Williams wasn’t look- 
ing. Ruffians — black or white — might be human beings, 
as he said of the black ones; but I couldn’t ever sym- 
pathize with his sympathy for ’em. 

“I boil when I think of what they go through on 
plantations, but I cool off when I think what I’d go 
through if they ever got hold of me in a nice spot for an 
oven. Wrap me in plantain-leaves and bury me in a 
coffin of hot rocks. 

“There was a flying clatter of hoofs — an’ a big man, 


WILD BLOOD 


ii 7 

bareheaded, with long black mustaches like walrus-tusks, 
came into sight, and he came on. He had a pistol in his 
hand. 

“I had a long look at him afterward, but I remember 
him from that first glimpse. His hair was rather long 
and white, but the mustache was black, and his face was 
big and full, a bit fat. No doubt it was usually red, 
with that overfed complexion of the beef-eater some 
Englishmen never lose, no matter where they go. 

“But then it was not red. There wasn’t a drop of 
blood in it. His mouth was half-open and the teeth stood 
out. Surprisin’ what one notices in a flash. His lips 
were drawn back as though he were going to tear some- 
body with his teeth. 

“The cannibals made as if to run at him. They did 
run a few steps, but stopped to throw whatever they 
had. Perhaps the fear of him was too deep. 

“Anyway he paid no attention to them. He rode for 
the gate. He came at a gallop. 

“The Samoans with us made as if to stand, then 
parted right and left. I pitched myself to one side. 
Grahame was coming through — and he was cornin’ fast. 

“It’s a wonder nobody shot. Because he was white, 
perhaps. Besides, anybody knew why he came on like 
that. We had seen the girl. 

“Williams was left alone in the gateway. As though 
a panic’s breath had blown the rest of us aside we cleared 
the road. He lifted a hand and cried: ‘Stop!’ By 
, he meant it, too. 

“Grahame didn’t even try to stop. He had a crop 
and reins in the same hand and struck the horse’s shoulder 
— a big bay with a white streak on the chest — and the 
pistol fired almost pointblank. It missed though, for 


WILD BLOOD 


118 

Williams had jumped — in that sudden way of his, like a 
stone from a sling — at the horse’s head. 

“All I saw was a blur of figures; a powerful horse 
with head dragged down, stumbling for a tenth of a 
second, with Williams clear of the ground, holdin’ on by 
dead weight, likely to be shaken off and crushed under 
hoof, or smashed when the horse fell going like that. 
Leaning over, striking with the crop an’ cursing, was 
Grahame. 

“That picture didn’t last much longer than one could 
snap finger an’ thumb ; then the horse was down, kicking 
out terribly. Grahame lay some yards ahead, moving 
drunkenly in an effort to get to his feet. His head was 
cut and blood streaked down his gray hair and smeared 
the whole side of his face. 

“Williams scrambled out with sudden, fierce move- 
ments like a fish jerks itself off a hook. His shirt was 
torn away. The shoulder and back were a bluish red — 
as if he had been flayed, or had started to be flayed, and 
broken away. Gravel and sand were ground into his 
flesh. The side of his face was scraped too; and blood 
appeared. 

“He staggered a little, an’ then took a step forward, 
limping, almost sinking. The effort it took to straighten 
himself was as plain as — well, as the chance he took in 
goin’ off his feet at that horse’s head. The horse was 
up and galloping crazily through the garden, the stirrup 
flappin’ an’ frightenin’ him the more. 

“Grahame didn’t have his bearings for a moment or 
two. He only had the urge to reach the house. He still 
held the pistol. He reeled forward, crisscross like a 
'drunken man, leanin’ way over, about to fall every 
instant. 


l WILD blood 


1 19 


“ 'Stop/ said Williams again. 

“He had a broken ankle, but he stayed on his feet. 
He even walked a step or two. I don’t suppose he felt 
pain just then, but a barefoot man with a broken ankle 
hasn’t anything but grit to stand on. 

“And as for pain, it made no difference when he did 
feel it later. Nothing exists for him but the thing he 
wants. 

“ 'Stop/ Williams had said, and that seemed to 
remind Grahame. 

“He staggered around. There was a kind of mysti- 
fied expression on his face that went off at once. 

“He raised the pistol. He forgot it was empty. . We 
had all forgot. 

“Williams’s knife went from his hand — like an arrow. 
It buried itself high on the left side of Grahame’s 
shoulder. It was meant for his heart. He was already 
unsteady on his feet. The blow put him to the ground. 

“Then the girl came out of the house. She came tear- 
ing herself from the frightened black women that tried 
to hold her back; and her thin blue silk robe was torn 
and pieces of it were left in the hands of the women. 

“She pulled the flimsy, ragged silk about her as she 
ran down the path. She was gettin’ it out of the way of 
her running. Not thinking about the ivory shoulder that 
showed, and the silken white chemise. Her yellow hair 
streamed behind her, an’ she flung herself by her father 
as if lifelessly pitched there. And she moaned, too choked 
for even sobs to get out.” 

And that was the beginning of what happened 

to us at Dakaru. The rest of it was like this : 

Williams walked up to them, the father and daughter, 
where Grahame, half-risen, was tugging to pull the knife 


120 


WILD BLOOD 


from his shoulder and cursing Williams, me, us — all, 
everything, everybody, even God Himself — with a steady, 
implacable flow of terrible words. Williams went up. 
He limped a little. Not much. He said nothing, then. 

It was very quiet, or seemed so, though down by the 
quarters the dogs were howling in the distance — barking 
and rushing in and out at the cannibals, who howled too, 
worse than the dogs. The Portuguese were shooting. 
Ragged reports of rifles, and yelling now and then. But 
that was at a distance. It seemed very far away. 

Right there it was silent, still, except for half-choked 
oaths of Grahame, flowing out. All oaths. 

He was not in a senseless passion. No. He was like 
a man who stands with his heels on the brink of hell, his 
face toward the Judge, and does not care. Determined 
to say what he thinks. 

Williams stooped and picked up the pistol. It was 
then he saw it was empty, or remembered. I edged a 
little nearer. I could not see his face. I could not see 
the face of the girl, huddled motionless, her arms about 
Grahame. 

Only Grahame’s face I could see, and that was on 
Williams. It was distorted almost to tears; the long 
black mustache hung down even with the point of his 
chin, or below, and the chin and lips worked at his oaths 
like some horrible, humanized mask. 

I suppose he thought Williams would kill him. The 
end of a fight is death in those far places and between 
such men as go there to break laws. 

I don't know what Williams thought ; I never knew ; 
nor how he felt. I know he was hurt, hurt more some- 
where inside of himself than by the flayed skin and broken 
ankle. The men who hat$ men, and women too, who are 


WILD BLOOD 


121 


grimly implacable — they are really tender-hearted. They 
hate because they have suffered ; and they wouldn’t have 
suffered if they were not more sensitive, more trusting, 
than those who are not deeply wounded and made bitter 
when people don’t keep faith with them. 

Take it the other way around. The terrible women 
are those who’ve been hurt, and could not, would not, 
forgive. So with men. 

I am not defending him. I shall have enough to do 
in interpreting certain records of the Great Angel so as 
to keep myself from injustice in the Last Judgment Hall, 
without being an advocate for better men than I. 

Let it be remembered why Williams made that raid; 
friends of his friends had been put into bondage. The 
Samoans were his people. They gave him welcome and 
harborage and sanctuary, greeting him with that limitless 
generosity that is peculiar to uncivilized, to barbaric and 
savage people. And some of them were already so civil- 
ized as to be willing to spread his whereabouts for the 
stuff with which gin is bought. These were the last days 
of real kingly power on the islands, and such civilized 
natives would have paid dearly for their betrayal, and 
paid by the savage code. 

Williams broke laws, and he broke heads, and He was 
often a brute, ferocious; but he never tormented. No 
one else tormented anybody or anything if he saw. He 
struck and he killed as the need seemed to require. 

He was always brief in his speech. He did not ques- 
tion Grahame. He did not tell Grahame that he had come 
back to the garden to keep the cannibals out, and that 
the two carcasses there at the edge of the road where 
they had been thrown were muted witnesses on his behalf. 


122 


WILD BLOOD 


He never defended himself anyway, anywhere. Perhaps 
he thought it a waste of words. 

He said he had come for the Samoan sailors ; that he 
would take all the natives that would go with him — take 
them home. 

With that Grahame knew him as Hurricane Williams. 
Stories of incomprehensible audacity were told of him ; 
how he made slavers disgorge and in other ways offensive 
to civilized men won the worship of savages. 

“Cannibal himself,” said rumor. 

Cannibalism — the crime so terrible that there are no 
laws among white people to punish it. It is the crime 
unthinkable. 

Grahame stopped cursing. He looked at Williams as 
if he had recognized some — some monstrosity. It was 
as if his curses were inadequate ; not that he was 
intimidated. A certain inexpressible loathing seemed to 
cover his face, as one might look at an armed leper. 

Of course this was all in rapid seconds but they 
stamped themselves on me like powerful dies. 

One had to know Williams even better than I to see 
how deeply he regretted — I don’t know precisely what. 
Perhaps the flower of a girl in the torn blue silk, splotched 
with her father’s blood. Here was contagious, shaking 
grief, inconsolable as if she wept over a coffin. The 
Orphean lyre that moved stones and tamed wild beasts 
must have struck the notes of sobbing virgins. 

Perhaps Williams regretted the knife sent into the 
body of a man who, however he might bruise and butcher 
blacks, asked no quarter and offered no parley when his 
daughter seemed in danger. I know it was an effort to 
resist offering to carry Grahame into the house. 

Williams was skilful with wounds, too. But he 


WILD BLOOD 


1 23 


turned away — as if his heart were harder than the stones 
that moved vibrantly before the half-god’s sobbing lyre. 

That is about all. 

With two fairly heavy sticks, one on the outside and 
one on the inside of the ankle, bound tightly as I could 
make them under his direction, he ignored his injury. 
He was insensible to pain and to fatigue, shaking them 
off as an angry man shakes off drowsiness. 

The Samoans were flung out in a long thin line and 
moved down to encircle the other natives. He managed 
at a distance to make the four or five overseers under- 
stand, and they helped eagerly, perhaps hoping to see a 
massacre in the end. 

Nobody was to shoot unless the line was rushed. He 
was emphatic. Alone he went down to talk with the 
trapped natives, using the meager “trade” English as a 
basis for the harangue. 

He was always surprisingly patient with natives. It 
is part of their life to bicker and debate, hesitate, refuse 
and evade when they have already decided to agree. 

He persuaded them to give themselves up. The 
leader among them was one who claimed to be the son of 
a Guadalcanar chief. The assurance that he and the few 
of his tribe were to be taken home was too good to be 
really believed, but too tempting to be rejected. Others 
among them had heard of Williams in that vague, half- 
legendary, inchoative way that rumor spreads farther 
than white men’s footprints. 

The Samoans objected. They wouldn’t have the wild 
blacks on the same ship with them. Never. Let them be 
killed. 

More parleying, and much formal dignity. Strange 


124 


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from a man who would not use words in explanation or 
argument with anybody of his own blood. 

We sailed out with two ships. Williams was down 
for another act of piracy. But most amazingly he said, 
after certain provisions and supplies — with some boxes 
painted warningly with red lead — had been transferred : 

'This is Grahame’s ship. He’ll get it back.” 

And that was all. 

He laid the course for the small schooner and left 
me with her to head for Savaii. About all I know of 
navigation is to follow the wind and hope nothing’ll get 
in the way. 

He turned and made for Santa Cruz, bumped around 
from village to village until every man that belonged in 
the group was in reach of home ; then he went on to the 
Solomons. He put those islanders right down on the 
beach of their village. 

There was a big feast — probably with some stray 
bushman in the oven, and tinned meats served generously ; 
and the chief offered Williams the earth. It happened 
that among those who came back was his own son. 

There is no prouder blood than a savage chieftain’s, 
and somewhere, probably around the great heart-fire of 
mankind’s first and common fathers, the traditions of 
hauteur and munificent gratitude were learned by the 
kingly families, black and brown as well as white and 
yellow. 

Some days later Williams started on his way. A 
German gunboat — the Germans were getting meddlesome 
in those waters even then — from a diminishing distance 
asked for some intimate information, and began to shoot. 
Probably her officers identified the schooner, for naval 


WILD BLOOD 


I2 5 

officers of all countries liked to visit Grahame. Escape 
on the sea was impossible. 

Williams did not dilly-dally. He made straight for 
the rocks. The Germans found a burning schooner — 
and dynamite. Williams and his Samoans vanished 
among unsuspected friends, and the German landing- 
party was beaten back and out. 

Revengeful, the boat shelled and burned the village, 
and destroyed priceless high-stemmed war-canoes that 
had been fittingly christened at the launching by the 
blood of women. But the natives considered the bargain 
fair. There were sleek, thick German heads to smoke 
amid the rafters of the restored gamal house. 

As I finished that book of Williams's odyssey I slipped 
to the side and furtively threw over the bottle Hawkins 
and I had emptied in the course of my narrative. When 
I came back to his side, Hawkins had nothing to say for 
a long, long time. 

“What do you think'll happen when w*e get to 
Dakaru?" he asked. 

“Blood will be splashed to the moon." 

“Curious — Grahame has that big plantation. Keeps it 
right up, an' won't sell a thing." 

“And what’d you sell if you had all you wanted?" I 
inquired in a lazy Socratic tone. 

“All I " 

He stopped. The idea was novel. He had to toy 
with it. 

“All I wanted?" 

Then with something like a snort: 

“Can't have all you want o' nothin'. Not even o’ trou- 
ble. Look at Williams. He goes huntin' it.” 

With renewed emphasis : 


126 


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“Grahame ain’t got all he wants. Man don’t work like 
that to amuse hisself. I mean make others work — them 
niggers. Queer, ain’t it? In this world you can’t get 
all you want.” 

“I guess you got all you wanted this afternoon.” 

Hawkins rubbed his jaw and peered at me. It was 
dark, but he did not need light for the retort : 

“An’ you smell like a reg’lar sailor — all tar an’ dish- 
water. Me? I was walloped like a man. But you — 
Humm! You got yours like as if you was a crippled 
girl.” Well pleased with his wit, he began a self-satis- 
fied tune and accompanied it by drumming on his belly. 
“I wisht I was in Dixie,” he hummed. Then breaking 
off — “I never been in Dixie, but I like the tune.” 

His spirit was irrepressible. None others on the Sally 
Martin so much as smiled. Had the schooner carried a 
cargo of dead kings Hawkins’s was the only manner that 
would have seemed unbecoming. 

“Lord,” he said with feeling, “I’d like to be ap-pre- 
hended for stealin’ an’ eatin’ an ox — an’ be guilty ! 
Plenty to eat at Dakaru, anyway. Nice fat pigs. We’ll 
catch a couple an’ roast ’em.” 

He smacked his lips anticipatingly. 

“Roast pig an’ pineapple. Um-mm.” A reflective 
pause. 

“Knowing what I do about him, sort o’ havin’ some 

first-hand personal facts, so to speak, I know well 

who to put my money on. I wisht he hit you — just one 
time. Knocked you so far we wouldn’t had to waste no 
canvas wrappin’ you. You led me into temptation, you 
did. Go on, Red Top. Tempt me some more. Ain’t you 
got another un stowed away handy?” 

I had. We drank it — toasting Williams. 


CHAPTER VII 


FATE, THE HUSSY, IS BOLDLY CHEATED 

M R. DAVENANT subtly encouraged me and Haw- 
kins to remember Williams's outburst. He sounded 
me with a chill delicacy. How did I feel about it? His 
words were not that blunt, and scarcely anything more 
than his manner asked the question. 

It was well — or maybe it was unfortunate — that he 
sounded me first. Hawkins would have been responsive, 
bluntly so. He did not like Davenant anyway. And 
Hawkins's brain was not supple enough to be artful and 
devious. 

Of course he would lie, as any man should. All honest 
men do at times. But Hawkins was particular about his 
lies, as well as sensitive about the color of his jaw and 
nose. 

He might have mistaken Davenant’s interest as liter- 
ally adding insult to injury. In which case he would 
have shown even less finesse than he had. Without being 
properly prodded, it would have never occurred to him 
to encourage Davenant’s sympathy. It would probably 
not have occurred to him that it was sympathy. 

Now I — I exploded into hearty curses. But not until 
I had taken several precautionary glances in many direc- 
tions. Davenant thought I was guarding against Will- 
iams. I was making sure that no silent, feminine figure 
in a long black cape was near. 

127 


128 


WILD BLOOD 


I assured him that Hawkins was filled with a consum- 
ing fire that flowed through his veins like molten coals ; 
that his belly had become a furnace. 

He poured a judicious word or two into my ear to 
heighten what he thought was my anger, but did not 
commit himself. Williams had been unjust. He had 
seen all. He was very lonely. Couldn’t I step into his 
room some time for a little friendly talk ? 

“If that charming niece of yours should fall overboard 
and stay there,” I said, but not aloud, “I would look with 
more favor on your cabin as a hatchery of plots. But 
Raikes used to sneak in there — and Tom Gibson is won- 
dering why it happened.” 

Aloud I expressed my thanks and intentions of 
accepting. 

“By the way,” he asked, looking at me from the 
corners of his eyes and trying not to appear very inter- 
ested, “do you know why he is eager to get to Dakaru ?” 

No, I couldn’t imagine why. 

He probably thought that I lied. My luck runs that 
way. 

Davenant walked off. Erect, with head well up, he 
stood perhaps watching nothing but his own thoughts. 
It was a comfortable gray day, with the sea tossing itself 
into crests that fell sizzling down the steep glassy sides 
of waves, and with the shrouds humming at times before 
the gusty blows of the wind. 

I studied his back, tall and square and reserved in 
bearing. He had dignity, the dignity of manners. Will- 
iams had dignity of another kind — with the utter lack of 
manners ; the dignity of a sheer, menacing personality. 

I could imagine Davenant at ease among jewel-en- 
crusted dowagers and men who bowed from the waist, 


WILD BLOOD 


129 


moving among them with cold grace, eying them with a 
sort of insolent sharpness that somehow would not be 
impolite. 

Said I to myself: “The Lord in His goodness pro- 
tects us innocents by making such as you wear on his 
countenance the devil’s mark.” 

But my knowledge then of the devil was not nearly 
so intimate as is needful to secure an honest man from 
harm. 

Hawkins was reluctant to accept any kind of intimacy 
with Davenant. He did not like him, or that woman with 
the serpent’s lidless eyes. We would get ourselves into 
trouble. It was one thing to be hanged for' piracy, 
another to be beaten to death for mutiny. 

Joke? He could see Williams taking a thing like that 
as a joke. No. In years to come he expected to have 
grandchildren scrambling about his knees. How dis- 
appointed those grandchildren would be if they were 
never bom, and so missed the tales he would tell as an 
ancient mariner. 

He would, he said, cut a throat or bash a head cheer- 
fully. It depended on whose throat or head. Mine, for 
instance, gladly. 

I coaxed; what a good joke it would be to play on 
Davenant! Hawkins replied that the devil did not have 
a sense of humor. I urged that we could find out what 
he was after at Dakaru; that it was a rare chance; 
Davenant himself had already the idea that we were 
mutinous. 

Hawkins objected. How much of it was fear of 
Williams, how much of it was the unvoiceable admiration 
that some men have for others who batter them in a fair 
fight, would be difficult to say. Maybe Hawkins had 


130 


WILD BLOOD 


caught something of that gleam from Williams's person- 
ality that fascinated me, made me, almost unwillingly at 
times, loyal to him, a follower. 

I told Hawkins he had no finesse. He agreed, saying 
that whatever it was, he didn’t want any either; that just 
then all he wanted was something to eat. So, declining 
to be serious, I gave up — but at the first chance conveyed 
to Davenant that Hawkins was desperate for vengeance. 

“Raikes is a navigator, isn’t he ?” he asked in that stiff 
way of his that was very nearly awkward. 

He knew better than I what Raikes had told him, but 
perhaps believing that all men were liars — as they are — 
wanted to see what I thought of it. 

I assured him that Raikes might possibly hit some 
part of the mainland — or some similiar large landfall — 
by dead reckoning. 

“Then Williams is the only man who can set a 
course ?” 

There was a bit of reluctance in his slow, cold words, 
as if he grudgingly gave Williams that credit. 

“Oh, no,” I assured him, rushing recklessly into his 
good opinion. “Half what Williams knows, I taught him. 
The only reason he hasn’t been letting me take the bear- 
ings is because he doesn’t want any one to know where 
he is heading.” 

“You are a good navigator?” he asked, drawing his 
lips back in an effort at an encouraging smile. 

It was not a smile, but it tempted me to affirm what 
I had said. 

“That simplifies matters. Very much. Very much 
indeed.” 

He spoke to me, but his thoughts were evidently busy 
elsewhere. Then — 


WILD BLOOD 


131 


“You know it is no crime to kill an outlaw.” 

The sentence was harsh. I have seen men killed. 
And maybe one or two will point a finger at me when 
we're all lined up for God to judge. But to murder in 
cold blood — not though the “outlaw” were my own 
enemy ! 

His saying that made me realize vividly, as I had not 
done before, how every hand was against Williams. It 
was no crime to kill him. The law would bless his mur- 
derer with gold. If he bowed down and worshiped the 
law, it would curse his murderer with the wrath of hemp. 

“Thou shalt have no gods but my tablets,” saith the 
Law. 

A wise commandant, no doubt ; but I know intimately 
whom it had banned, and the Law never recognizes per- 
sonality — the only thing of value that a man can have. 
I could feel Davenant’s sense of security. Cold and dark 
he stood, with his thumbs slipped into his side coat pock- 
ets, egging me on with that vindicating sentence, “It is no 
crime to kill an outlaw.” 

“I know. I know. But it’s damned dangerous at 
times,” I answered. 

His eyes narrowed and he smiled the gleaming tooth- 
ful smile through the crack that was his mouth, the mouth 
covered with black hair ; and gave me a pitying, supercil- 
ious look. 

“Not afraid, exactly,” I explained. “But, you know, 
he pays well. Particularly those who strike at him — and 
miss !” 

Said Davenant slowly, impressively, his eyes fast on 
me : “I can pay ten times better than he.” 

Pause. 

“Particularly those who back from a bargain !” 


132 


WILD BLOOD 


I wished that I were drunk. Curious little shivers ran 
up and down my back. I wasn’t fashioned to fence 
threats with men, or do bold things. Put me out of a 
jesting humor and my tongue was thick as a knotted fist, 
but with no such force to it. 

And this fellow seemed impalpably closing in on me, 
getting me clinched, getting my signature down in my 
own blood to a bargain of his own terms. Yet there was 
nothing tangible to protest against. The threat didn’t 
frighten me. 

But some way the joke I was playing on him did not 
seem to have so much of a point as I had expected. Any 
minute I could laugh and tell him he was a fool. That 
is, if I could laugh. But he seemed getting at me with 
something more than words. 

“Who sups with the devil must have a long spoon,” 
says the proverb. 

I wriggled about a bit. I was not cultivating Daven- 
ant’s intimacy for the pleasure of his company, or merely 
to laugh at him for a dupe. He was not the sort of man 
one laughs at, any more than was that dark niece of his 
one to be taunted. The same sinister strain was in them. 
Perhaps one could be an antidote for the other, as poison 
neutralizes poison. 

My purpose was to ferret out Davenant’s plans at 
Dakaru. Williams wanted to know. So did I. It was 
strange, the way he was trying to get there. It was 
more strange that he should be going at all. 

I mentioned “rewards” and what hope of having them 
if we went on to Dakaru. 

He mentioned the reward on Williams’s head. 

I replied that one didn’t need lay a course for Dakaru 
to get that. No. It would be necessary to put about for 


/ 


WILD BLOOD 


133 


Sydney. And as I would then be the only man on the 
ship who could navigate, why — there must need be in- 
ducements for going on to Dakaru. 

He said the ship would be mine. 

“When you haven’t a clear title to give it to me — and 
Hawkins ?” 

I brought Hawkins in as a labored afterthought. 

“Dakaru belongs to me and to my — to Dula Davenant. 
Wealth is there. You may help yourself.” 

A tempting offer, with Grahame and his savage over- 
seers, armed, watchful, more watchful than on a previous 
visit. 

I suggested that Grahame might not recognize the 
ownership or my right to compensation. I felt I was 
getting near to Davenant’s secrecy. 

“Grahame will have nothing to say,” he replied 
irritably. 

“That isn’t like what Raikes told me,” I flashed. 

Just said it, without thinking. Raikes, of course, had 
told me nothing. 

“What did Raikes tell you?” Davenant demanded, 
his head settling down slightly on his shoulder and his 
eyes catching hold of my face. 

It was as if he looked from a mask. The same, or 
much the same, as Miss Davenant looked ; as if a close- 
fitting mask were over the face and only the eyes 
revealed. Sometimes her eyes seemed half-hidden too. 

“Ask him,” I countered maliciously, feeling my spirits 
rise a little at having Davenant seem to be at a slight 
disadvantage. 

“If Raikes told you the truth,” he said slowly with 
something of menace in his voice — just whom the men- 
ace was directed at, would be hard to say — “you know 


134 


WILD BLOOD 


why Dakaru belongs to me. That” — a sharp snap of 
finger and thumb — “for Raikes !” 

“But that” — imitating the snap of finger and thumb 
— “won’t impress Grahame.” 

“No. But this will.” 

He half-turned and pushed back the tail of his coat, 
and his hand touched the butt of a revolver. 

It impressed me, too. It was not so much of a brag- 
gart’s gesture as it may seem; for though it was, of 
course, deliberately theatrical, it was accompanied by that 
slow, white smile. 

The next few days we had our troubles. Hawkins 
said old Neptune had the stomachache. 

I didn’t know where we were, and much of the time 
I did not care. It was a case of water, water everywhere 
— and nothing to drink; for the perfidious Hawkins had 
raided my small store and been caught in the act by Raul- 
son, the cook. Between them and the forecastle nothing 
was left but the carpenter’s chest where I had cached a 
half dozen bottles. And that was not left long. The 
wind came up out of a glowing sky some time near mid- 
night and stripped the masts with thunderous booms, and 
away we went, scudding under bare poles. Great 
combers rode the Sally Martin , stamping her under. 
She was lifted and shaken, as if to jar her ballast and turn 
her keel to the clouds. 

Rain fell. It came in driving shafts of water, not as 
drops. By morning two boats were smashed, and th$ 
jolly-boat was gone from across the stern where she had 
been lashed. 

The seas were tremendous. I was caught between the 
rails, and my lungs were strained to the bursting-point 


WILD BLOOD 


135 


before the deck rose clear; and my arms were nearly 
jerked from their sockets as my hands held on, while feet 
and legs swayed about. Had the sea been enraged at the 
impudence of a few insects strutting about on a thing of 
wood, the waves could not have seemed more sentiently 
determined to pound us to pieces. 

Two men went overboard and were swept away into 
the night of wild water with only the faintest of cry out 
of the darkness. The others tumbled into the flooded 
forecastle and stayed there. 

There was. no working the ship, not though we had all 
been able sailors. There was nothing to do. Aft we 
were all frightened though some showed it in a way that 
others did not. 

Probably because I was, I say the others were fright- 
ened. There is nothing I like more than a mild storm at 
sea, with the thunder comfortably in the distance, like 
deep reports from far battle-fields, with the waves surg- 
ing and white, but not leaping the rail, a veritable host of 
watery pirates. But this mad storm shook my ribs clat- 
teringly together. 

Raikes and Hawkins and I, Miss Davenant and 
Davenant, in the fearful communion of those hours, 
stood about in the passageway like quiet strangers. That 
is, for a time — in the first appalling burst of the rage that 
shook heaven and sea, it seemed as if a second horde of 
evil angels were being driven out by the bolts of 
archangels. 

Then Hawkins, nearly drunk and always weary on 
his feet, sat on the deck and soon sprawled in sleep, 
mumbling prayers and oaths in a nightmare of unrest. 
Raikes leaned nervously from side to side, his one glit- 
tering eye turning about like the gaze of a restless* 


136 


WILD BLOOD 


trapped animal. From time to time he said it was “a hell 
of a night,” indifferent as to whether he was answered 
or heard. 

All of us were soaked, for all had rushed on deck at 
the first arousing blast; and a thin sheet of salt water 
swashed about our feet. Hawkins lay in it, head on arm, 
indifferently. Though the night was not cold, we were 
chilled ; a nervousness leaves one chilled. 

Davenant was dressed, even to shirt and coat, but not 
collar. It took such a storm to make him forgetful of his 
immaculate appearance. He stared from one to the other 
of us, and stood listening — until thrown off balance by 
the violent lurches of the ship. 

He said little. I remember his asking me if we were 
“doomed.” 

“And damned,” I answered. 

“A hell of a night!” Raikes put in, aroused by the 
sound of voices. 

“Do you think the ship will sink?” Miss Davenant 
asked me. 

I was honest and told her that I thought it would. I 
did not see how we could go long with such wind and 
waves without being piled on to a reef. 

I did not explain all that to her, but I judged we were 
not more than three or four hundred miles off the main- 
land; and there are enough reefs and islands scattered 
about in those waters to wreck all the navies of the world 
in a week of bad nights ; and there is something in the 
midst of a storm that makes one feel it will never end, 
that the order of nature has been changed, that the ship 
is dead and forever damned. 

“Yes,” I told her. 

It may; have been the heroic part for me to have 


WILD BLOOD 


137 


assured her otherwise, to have given her hope and all 
that which brave men do for fair women in times of 
peril. But she did not need my words. She took my 
answer with a steady look and shook her head slightly. 
No. She knew we would not. 

It was not fear of death that made her hope. I 
remembered afterward that she was a fatalist. The earth 
can blow up, the sky cave in, but the fatalists have counted 
the sands that mark the hour and know that one by one 
the little grains must trickle through before Death dares 
smite the glass. 

Her hair was loose. It had evidently been caught up 
in one swift swoop and pinned carelessly. She wore her 
cape, and under it the silken, thin hem of a nightgown 
hung. It touched the deck unless held up, and when she 
was thrown and put out her hands to steady and catch 
herself it fell to the water. 

Her stockingless feet were thrust into slippers, 
through one of the slits in her cape her bare arm was 
extended, bracing herself now here, now there. 

She was afraid, of course. We all were; anybody 
would have been ; anybody always is in conditions of the 
kind, though there was none of that panicky excitement 
or agitation that traditionally — and seldom in reality — 
goes with fear. The man who has no fear in him is a 
clod. And she was vibrant, strung taut, her black eyes 
widened into a kind of unaffected wonder. 

A few times her hand flew to her ear to shut out 
the thunder that seemed striking the deck. At such 
stunning, deafening, ear-crashing peals, that came 
stroke on stroke like the ragged volley of monstrous 
cannon fired within arm’s reach overhead, I flinched as 
from an impending blow. 


138 


WILD BLOOD 


Two lanterns swung from beams, but the lightning, as 
if passing through the calked seams, reached our eyes 
dazzlingly, reached mine even through tightened lids. 

Once, half-blinded by the sudden, instantaneous glare 
that, streaming like the swish of a flaming sword close as 
to strike off the end of a nose, came through the sky- 
light, I tightened my eyes, turned my face down and 
pressed against them with both fists. And the ship lay 
on her beams’ end. 

Miss Davenant was flung against me. I caught her 
with circling arms. We slipped unsteadily, half-fell, and 
rocked with the righting of the ship — my arm still about 
her. It is difficult to speak of that half-minute and say 
what I mean, and not convey to too susceptible imagina- 
tions something that I did not mean. The contact was 
thrilling, but in some way not personal. When I dropped 
my arm she stepped back with a little laugh. There was 
no embarrassment about har, no thanks. And the laugh 
was not merriment so much as a kind of nervousness — 
something so natural as to be strange. Strange because 
I had been more than a little awed by her; awed by the 
embodied mystery and aloofness of her. But her body 
was soft and warm — a woman’s. 

No one noticed, though Davenant and Raikes could 
scarcely have helped seeing. 

Hawkins rolled willy-nilly, grunted and swore; half- 
raising himself, he looked about in a stupid daze, damned 
wind, sea, ship, and fell drowsily against the bulkhead. 
He soon slipped prone, and slept. 

She probably did not give the slight incident a second’s 
thought. But I was awakened, made aware that for all 
of her pose and stiffness, her tragic aspect, she was a 
woman ; her flesh was not marble, her breath was warm. 


WILD BLOOD 


139 


Yet the psychic distance between us was not decreased. 
She had fallen against me as she might have fallen 
against a stanchion; and laughed as she might have 
laughed then at her awkward mishap. But I had seen 
behind her mask — not necessarily understanding her the 
better for it. A woman whose body is heated by heart- 
beats, who is in spite of her role not the character she 
plays, is more intricate and bewildering than even a sym- 
bol. 

At the risk of being misunderstood, I put it down that 
I liked her — without, perhaps, thinking any the better of 
her. I mean that I knew she was dangerous, I felt that 
she was wicked; but somehow I realized that it was not 
the cold, dispassionate fierceness of mere wickedness. In 
other words, that she was human. 

A slight occasion for such subtle perceptions, no 
doubt. But I say that no man, whether by a moment’s 
inadvertence or an evening’s coaxing, ever embraced a 
woman without being the wiser for it. Some definite, 
convincing — though not necessarily correct — stimulus 
struck through his myriad surface nerves and, most often, 
reached his heart ; or, as in my case, threw strong, though 
rather confused, impressions on his mind. Or, to make 
all this abracadabraic phrasing simple, I felt she was not 
— as I had feared — a mad woman. That two seconds of 
nervous, almost girlish, laughter was sane. And the way 
she drew from me was spontaneous, unaffected. Those 
were the only utterly natural things I had seen from her. 
Then too her body had been soft, pliant, warm. 

I knew she was a murderess, but somehow those 
impressions dulled, blurred the knowledge. Besides, 
there was a storm overhead; and incidents of casual 


140 


WILD BLOOD 


significance hit with dominant vividness, take on undue 
• importance, at such time. 

I went up the companion and slipped the cover 
slightly. Nothing was visible except under the flashes of 
lightning, too often blinding ; only there was occasionally 
the spectral white outline of a foam-crested wave that 
washed up out of the darkness. Wind, water and thunder 
filled the air ; I doubted not that they filled the universe 
with stormy orchestration. 

I tried to tell myself that death under the volleying 
thunders of Heaven’s cannon, with the sea piling moun- 
tains of water for the grave-mound, with the epitaph 
scrawled in slithering foam, was death and nothing more 
or less than if one died abed. However, as a philospher 
I was a failure. It was no use to assure myself that 
though all the artillery of a nation might speak at the 
death of a king, and architects heap marble monuments 
over him, and poets write their fine lines for bronze 
tablets, yet all this would wear away and Judgment Dawn 
would find his burial-ground no more identified than a 
grave on the sea’s bottom. 

Had I been abed, with a charitable priest praying God 
to condone my sins, I would probably have thought what 
a miserable way to salute Death, and wanted to go down 
at sea with the full majesty of storm heralding the end. 

The truth is, of course, that I didn’t want anything 
to do with death; and just at that minute I could not 
remember any of those comforting maxims of philos- 
ophers that make a healthy man on a quiet day so recon- 
ciled to the embrace of the Dark Angel’s fleshless arms. 
Not much. I wanted a warm inn and a rainy night, a dear 
and careless maiden with bright eyes to click a stone mug 


WILD BLOOD 


141 

with mine and join in the chorus of some deep-throated 
song that told the devil to go to hell and stay there. 

I had no hope. Something more than the tossing 
ship, the flying wind and low-bent clouds puffing thunder 
and lightning, had got into me. I was frightened by an 
inner sense of tragedy as well as by the awful and more 
theatric fulminations, concatenations, bombilations, topsy- 
turvy flings of wood and water, and general uproar 
and outburst, as if Omnipotence were in an ultimate 
rage. Perhaps my sense of the dramatic made me feel 
that God would not skimp His climax. He had a ship- 
load of Jonahs and an ocean of whales, but nobody to 
throw us overboard into their mouths — so down must 
go the ship and all of us end our evil lives. 

Evil, evil, evil? And what had we done? 

Drunk, stolen and fought, and neglected to pray 
except at such moments as this — when the forgotten 
prayers could not be remembered. 

I wondered if Williams prayed. There at helm he 
stood, feet to the bolted grating, his hands clinched at 
the wheel-spokes. The poop was fairly clear of the water, 
but waves hit him, rushed over him, pulled, wrestled and 
tugged at him, again and again. 

He did nothing more there than a lashing on the 
helm could have done, would have done. He had to go 
before the wind though we went out of his course, and 
except for the flares of lightning he could not see forward 
of mizzen ; nor was there a lookout. 

It always seemed incredible that a ship, any man's 
ship, even one of the monstrous modern crew-driven iron- 
clads, could live through a real storm. The old ocean 
is big; its depth would engulf the highest mountain-range 
nor leave a peak to mark the spot ; all the dry land of 


142 


WILD BLOOD 


earth could be shoveled into the seven seas, eaten, 
absorbed, vanished. And men treat that old ocean with 
insolent familiarity; pit their wood and will against it — 
and win. 

Williams was out there perfectly aware that he could 
do nothing, except by the luckiest of chances. Even so he 
went through his days, and nights, seemingly without 
fear and with no hope. Just determination. Determina- 
tion to go on, as if it were the fight and not the end, not 
the winning, that concerned him. 

He had something in him that answered every 
challenge, even that of such a night as this. He would 
not quit, he would not shirk, he would not lash the helm 
and go below, trusting his luck and God. He may have 
had more faith in God than that — faith that He would 
not refuse good fortune to one who made the utter effort. 

I doubt if Williams ever thought of God. Perhaps the 
men who serve Him most do not; at least the canting, 
prayful kind, the melancholic brotherhood so concerned 
with what is righteous and what is not, and praising God 
as courtiers do a crotchety king, appear to my biased eyes 
as serving Him less than laying up riches and honor for 
themselves in Heaven — the merchant princes of Eternity ! 
But myself being one of the unregenerate of the earth, of 
course I am full of hope that by some inadvertence I 
shall have a harp and crown without having worked for 
it. 

I was aware of somebody standing beside me, pushing 
against me. For some time we stood peering like peepers 
that had come upon fearful mysteries, our eyes just 
above the lowered companion cover. 

The sea was a thousand molten hills. Lightning laced 
the sky with fiery chords, vanishing in half-seconds, but 


WILD BLOOD 


143 


illuminating — more illuminating than if the noon sun had 
been instantly turned on and off. 

Thunders smote. Wind roared. Clouds of flying 
spray rose to meet the rain — downpouring as if all the 
deep-bottomed vessel of the sky were being emptied. 

“Oh, this is wonderful — wonderful !” she half- 
sobbed. 

I twisted myself around and tried to look at her. 

I demanded what she would call terrible. I did not 
speak in any conversational spirit. I was irritated; or at 
least irritation must have been the basis of my feeling. 
There I was, frightened, shaken, by as fierce a storm as 
ever smote the sea — or I was willing to believe that it was 
— and she was admiring it. 

She perhaps did not hear my question. Anybody who 
could not hear the terrible menace of the shrieking wind 
and solid blows of the water, beating like a legion of 
rams against our frail wooden walls, should not have 
been expected to hear absurd questions. 

Presently : “This is the first thing of my life that has 
wholly satisfied me.” 

She was not talking to me. But I leaned close to her 
ear and shouted: “How?” 

“And all you men are down here !” 

There was a queer mingling of scorn and admiration 
in that. Evidently she was not in a mood to be ques- 
tioned. Or maybe she really did not hear, her attention 
being concentrated. 

Williams's was a striking figure amid the hurricane. 
He stood rigid as if cast in bronze, and naked except for 
trousers cut away at the knees. 

The deck rose and fell, down, down, down with the 
long slow drop of a pitching ship, then up as if being 


144 


.WILD BLOOD 


raised to the clouds. From time to time the water came 
over with a hoarse, engulfing rush and buried him to his 
waist, to his neck, occasionally it seemed covering him 
from sight. It was a distinct surprise to see him emerge 
each time, though I knew very well he could not be swept 
away. There was nothing courageous in his being there, 
though she thbught it was the height of heroism. There 
was, however, a good deal of that strange quality of his 
which seemed to seize on the hardest, most grinding 
strain, and meet it. 

Being covered and lost under water meant nothing to 
him. He was a good deal like a porpoise. But the blow 
of the water — that was something. 

“I couldn’t be afraid with ” 

Her sentence stopped. The deck had been boarded by 
a moving mountain. I shot the cover fast to keep from 
being drenched. 

At once her hands were pushing against it frantically. 

“Let me see! Quick. I’m afraid — I must see!” 

“Want to be drowned?” 

“He’ll be drowned!” 

“No more ’an a fish.” 

“Open this ” 

She pushed at me. 

“You cowards !” 

“Water — through here — smother us.” 

“Open it!” 

Her fists were beating against the cover. 

“He’s all right.” 

“Open it ! Why don’t you open it !” 

“Now listen ” 

“Open it ! Open it ! Open it !” 


WILD BLOOD 145 

From below Davenant called up apprehensively to 
know what was the matter. 

I looked over my shoulder. Raikes had taken a step 
up the companion. 

“You get back,” I shouted. 

He stepped irresolutely down. 

Miss Davenant had stopped talking and was strug- 
gling. Savagely, as if struggling for air, she pushed and 
beat and jabbed. Her strength was surprising. 

She slipped the cover. The mountain had slid off. 
The deck was clear of water. 

In a flare of lightning Williams was still there as if 
he had passed through nothing more than a wisp of fog. 
He was leaning slightly forward, eyes set to pierce the 
darkness, or rather to catch the farthest distance in the 
quick thrusts of lightning. 

“Can’t I go out there?” she asked. 

She didn’t expect me to say anything other than, 
“No.” At least I was sure she didn’t. So I said : 

“Of course. You’ll be carried over quicker ’an you 
can ask God for mercy.” 

“I’ll never ask for mercy !” 

It sounded as if she was speaking between clinched 
teeth. Perhaps she was. The surprises of her were 
infinite. That was a crazy thing to say at such a time. 

“What would you do out there ?” 

“I would feel at home — at last !” 

She said it almost gaily, in sudden good humor, but 
not as pleasantry. I believe she meant it. Perhaps the 
repressed, tearing, destructive powers within her found 
expression in the unlimited noise of sky and surge of 
water.. 

There is nothing intelligible about women when they 


146 


.WILD blood 


break, as most of them do at some time or other, from 
under the seal of Solomon, or of other wise men, fathers, 
brothers, husbands; and like the jinn out of the fisher- 
man’s bronze bottle, take on the strange shapes and 
release stranger forces which, since they are common to 
almost all women, must be called feminine. 

I said something about being afraid, that it was sur- 
prising in her not being; and asked if she did not know 
what fear was. It was a good chance for her to assume 
conceited falsehood and deny it. But she did not. She 
said that she had been afraid all of her life — but never 
in thunder-storms. 

“I am terribly afraid of him!” she whispered in a 
hurried confessional, jerking her head slightly to indicate 
the foot of the stairs. 

At that moment, and for that moment only, she 
seemed young, girlish. I have often wondered as to her 
age. 

“Raikes ?” 

“No-no!” Then, whispered with teeth shut: “The 
black beast!” 

“Davenant ?” 

Maybe she nodded, or it may have been the jerk of the 
ship. And the sudden warning shh-sh-h may not have, 
possibly did not, come from her. The water hissing 
about the deck and the sibilant spray may have made the 
sound. My imagination, being nimble, often plays tricks. 

“They can’t hear us. Why?” I asked. 

“No.” Then with cutting indifference: “He is no 
worse than others.” 

Not dawn, but a barely palpable gray, oozed out of 
the black sky. The thunders were being withdrawn to 


WILD BLOOD 


147 


a distance, like a retreating rear-guard. The wind, 
dying, was still a whistling blast, but not a fury. The 
sea was wild, moving forward with billowing rushes ; 
and the Sally Martin went with it, headlong, plunging 
and rearing. 

I had been up and down the companion several times, 
restlessly wondering what to do. I was tired and I 
ached, and there was no place for rest. 

Raikes had disappeared, probably to his bunk, where 
no doubt he lay in wet clothes. Davenant sat on a chair 
by the doorway of his cabin, looking worn and drawn, 
but watchfully waiting for — what? 

Probably at the back of his head had been the vague 
idea of taking to the boats if the ship floundered. It 
would have been as safe to cling to a pine-knot on a lake 
of fire. Besides, the boats were smashed. 

Where did these people get their vitality, I wondered. 
For two hours Miss Davenant had been standing on the 
companion. Williams, of course — I was not surprised at 
anything he did. I sometimes thought that he sought 
exhaustion in any way and form the better to sleep. 

Hawkins had more than vitality; he had a magic 
sense of oblivion. He simply had drawn a little circle 
around himself and shut the night terrors out. Not alto- 
gether, though, for there had been mumbled oaths. 

I came down and put a foot into his ribs. 

I told him this wouldn’t do. He stirred, rumbling 
mightily, and put his hands to his head, groaning. 

“I wish it had been poison,” I said. 

He had, I am sure, drunk at least two quarts the pre- 
vious evening — and all it did was make him drowsy. He 
smacked his dry lips, wanting water. 


148 


WILD BLOOD 


“We came near throwing you over to lighten ballast,” 
I said. 

“Why didn’t you?” he growled. “I’m sick, man. 
Lord, what’s happenin’ now?” 

A ton of water came down the stairs, and a shout from 
the deck above. The schooner rocked drunkenly, bobbing 
in a seaway. A fine jamboree. I looked up the com- 
panion. The cover was off. Miss Davenant was not in 
sight. 

As I started up I glanced sidewise and carried with 
me an impression of Davenant’s indignant, astonished 
face, the salt spray dripping from his black beard. He 
was wet as a drowned cat, and seemed to have a feline 
aversion to the water — at least on his beard. 

Again the shout from the deck. It was Williams 
calling. 

Up I tumbled with a hundred fears at my throat, and 
not one of them shameful. I was sure Dula Davenant had 
been washed over. She wasn’t but I came near being, for 
I leaped out into a waist-high wave — much of which went 
on down the companion and threw Davenant, who was 
following, back against Hawkins. 

The booming oaths of Hawkins rose above the seeth- 
ing and splash of water. I heard them from where I 
was stranded — with a whole side of ribs apparently 
broken — against the rail. 

For a moment my sense of sight was confused ; I saw 
so much at once. For one thing there in the misty haze 
of a black morning, on our lee, a mile or so ahead, lay 
wallowing helplessly what had been a proud full-rigger. 
She lay half-under, stern down, probably from a leak and 
shifted ballast, and slowly turned around and round — a 
living derelict. 


WILD BLOOD 


149 


The mainmast had perhaps been sprung, and cut 
away. At least it was gone, and the others remained. 
Some of the sails were furled, and others were gone 
with only wisps of flying rope. She had evidently been 
caught by surprise. 

There were clusters of black spots in the fore-rigging 
where the crew hung like insects. Below them wolfish 
waves leaped; yes, with even foam-flecked jaws. 

But I turned my eyes from the foundering ship to look 
at our own helm, where Williams stood with his arms 
actually about Dula Davenant. What really happened 
of course I never knew. But I did know about the only 
thing that could have happened. 

Perhaps with the lessening rage of the sea she peered 
farther and farther out, until — either reckless or catching 
sight of the wrecked ship — she ran on deck. A wave 
caught her, and she was swept or struggled close enough 
for Williams to snatch her. 

In doing so he let go> the helm, and the schooner 
promptly veered. There was no other way for him to 
hold her and grasp the helm too, than by pressing her 
between wheel and his breast ; and he had shouted. 

It may have been mean of me ; it may have been even 
a little vicious ; but said I to myself, even as I pressed a 
hand to my aching side — 

“A woman gets what she wants though men die and 
ships go down, though sky and sea clamor and fight.” 

Further meditations were interrupted. Davenant and 
Hawkins and Raikes were on deck, scrambling and slid- 
ing about, and grasping whatever they could to hold on, 
and staring across to the wreck. 

“McGuire!” 

Williams did not need add: 


WILD BLOOD 


IS® 


“Come here and take this woman.” 

He conveyed it in one word. With much wavering 
I made it across the deck, and caught her arm and waist. 

“I won’t go down there,” she said firmly, holding 
back. 

She was soaking wet. Even the heavy cape sought 
clingingly the curves of her body. 

“It’s dangerous ” 

“I don’t care.” 

It wasn’t stubbornness. It was intention. She did 
not intend to go below — and she didn’t. 

At that moment if Williams had said to throw her 
overboard I would have been pleased. It was for a raging 
second precisely what I wanted to do. 

I let go, throwing up all responsibility for her. She 
could do as she pleased. She braced herself between 
the companion and skylight and remained there, all eyes. 

No ribs of mine were broken, but it would have made 
no difference had they been. Williams gave me the 
wheel and cut himself loose from the grating. He said 
to let her drift down close to the wreck. 

“For God’s sake, you’re not goin’ to try ” 

But he was gone. 

Seas were still coming at intervals over the waist, 
but he plunged forward, roused the forecastle, broke out 
hawsers, bent an end to a spar and cast it over in the 
desperate, mad hope of having it drift down against the 
wreck. It was dangerous business, as well as seemingly 
futile. 

In the first place there was little more than blind luck 
to carry us near enough; and being carried that near 
gave the risk of collision. Moreover the chance of any 
man leaping into the water and reaching the hawser 


WILD BLOOD 


151 

or spar was not to be thought of ; and of living through 
it, if he did, was even less to be believed. 

But excitement got into us. For the first time, and 
that after a wearing, dispiriting night, there were rushing 
and eagerness among the men as they anxiously paid out 
the hawser and calculated the diminishing distance. The 
sodden stem of the wreck, so low in the water that the 
mizzen-yards were under, gave her a slower drift. 

There is something eternal in men that makes them 
strive to help the danger-stricken; an ennobling quality 
that may be sheltered from view for the better part of a 
lifetime, but it appears with sudden flare of courage when 
the risk is greatest, the chance least hopeful. Strangers 
all ; and when one ship comes down on another in distress, 
the daring sacrifice is made. 

The yearning to help is intense, often more overpow- 
ering than the desire to live — a thing scarcely believable 
unless one reflects on the records, authenticated, of the 
sea. The ocean is a fearful mistress, and her lovers must 
be fierce men, ready to pay with flesh, blood and bones — 
as in the wooing of other mistresses they pay with their 
gold and their honor — and there is no jealousy between 
them, at least not in the midst of danger. 

All that we could do had been done. And our crew 
waited, sometimes breast deep in water, unnoticing, indif- 
ferent. 

A faint cheer, scarcely more than a distant echo, came 
from the rigging. It was thanks rather than hope; and 
acknowledgment of what, to those poor devils anyway, 
seemed chivalrous. It was more tfian chivalry. It was 
madness. 

As we drifted closer and I hastily put down the helm, 
Williams said to let her drift, to collide with the wreck 


i $ 2 


WILD BLOOD 


rather than miss it. One minute it looked as if a collision 
was unavoidable, the next that we would go by far out of 
reach. If we hit the wreck, we ourselves would be one; 
but Williams would dare anything. 

The ocean is maddening in drawing out its strain on 
men’s hearts. Its tragedies are slow. Fire breaks out 
and may last a day, or days. A ship that is lost takes, 
usually, many hours to fill and sink while men climb top- 
mast yards as if to be nearer Heaven with their prayers. 
Storm-driven, a ship sights breakers ahead, and nothing 
is possible but to wait, minute on minute, till she strikes — 
or, by a miracle, misses. 

Strange that the reliant, defiant, hard-fighting, 
audacious breed of seamen should be the ones who most 
frequently are stricken numb, or might as well be, cer- 
tainly rendered powerless, while the forces about them 
move on slowly, inevitably, to the sad end or to the 
miracle. 

So we drifted down on the wreck — we, shipping a 
sea at every roll, came broadside, rocking down the sea- 
way. The spar, though cast astern, being lighter, floated 
more rapidly. 

There was a chance that the hawser would come in 
contact with the wreck as we drifted by. There was 
also the hope that the spar would get caught in the 
wreck’s rigging, and we would have a slightly better 
chance of getting some of the crew on board — if the haw- 
ser did not part, as it would be almost sure to do in that 
sea, with the wreck holding back. 

There were all kinds of chances, but what must have 
been the sensation of the fifteen or twenty men in the 
rigging? Invisible dice were being shaken for their 


WILD BLOOD 


153 


lives. No, not even a miracle could save them all. Per- 
haps nothing mortal could save any of them. 

From the time we had first seen them they had hung 
in the rigging, motionless or scarcely stirring — like flies 
on a screen in the cold. As they saw what was trying 
to be done, there was movement among them. 

The ship had unmistakably been settling. She was 
now more than half under — her deck had a sharper slant, 
and the foremast was at times — in the course of the 
ship’s slow, weary plunges, as if she was very tired and 
hope-forsaken — fairly parallel with the ocean. Her bows 
were thrust sharply out of the water. 

In her slow turning around, like a watertop making 
its last, reeling revolutions, the upreared forecastle com- 
pletely cut off from view the fore-rigging ; then, the men 
coming into view again, we could see them scrambling 
about. There was a movement among them to get out on 
the yard, a cluster of forms ; and one, two, three, dropped 
into the water. Distinct cries were heard. 

“My God!” roared Hawkins. “They’re fightin’!” 

They were. 

We were some two hundred or less yards off and 
could see plainly that those poor doomed wretches, right 
on the edge of life’s end, were fighting madly to get out 
on the yard to what seemed to them the best position from 
which to jump for the black thread with the tooth-pick 
attached. Some were knocked off. Some jumped with 
the hope of scrambling up the forecastle to the bowsprit. 
None made it. For an instant we could see bodies tossed 
sprawlingly on a wave’s crest, then submerged. 

“Look at the big fellow — they’re pullin’ him off ” 

“He’s failin’— No— There!” 

“Ow !’ 


154 


WILD BLOOD 


A man whom the others seemed instinctively to have 
turned on had been beating his way out on the yard-arm. 
He was pushed off his balance and seemed falling but 
caught himself and jerked down one above him who had 
kicked out. 

Agilely the big man was back on the yard, enemies on 
both sides — but they were afraid. Foot by foot he 
worked himself out, turning every second to strike at any 
who came within reach from behind. 

He moved on toward the two men in front. These 
gave way. They were crowded out — right out to the 
end, and among the cries heard seemed cries for mercy. 

Perhaps not. Then the man on the extreme end 
turned against his companion ; he aided the big fellow in 
throwing off the one between them. That is what it 
looked like. 

Cries of anger went up from our deck, and I detected 
the sharp, quick, fierce exclamation of Dula Davenant 
under, rather than above, the voices of the others, of 
whom Hawkins’s was the loudest. There were angry, 
outraged cries, too, from the rigging. But the man on the 
extreme end, if his purpose had been to placate the big 
fellow, gained nothing. The two bodies were merged for 
a moment, turned on the yard, heads down and legs 
encircling it — then one fell away. 

The big fellow clawed himself up, twisted his head 
around and shook his fist at men behind him who had 
started out; but dared not come close. As he shook his 
fist he must have yelled a curse, for seconds later — after 
the fist was lowered and he had faced around, looking for 
the drifting spar — the oath reached us. 

The other end of the yard was covered with men, and 


.WILD BLOOD 


155 


slowly the wreck revolved. Luck was to determine who 
should have the better chance. 

It was now clear that the hawser would strike against 
the ship, but the heavy hawser sagged so low in the 
water that it would probably do no service as a thing to 
hold on to. The ship was going lower and lower, so 
slowly as to be imperceptible except by the higher reach 
of the waves as they leaped for the yard, hungrily. 

A turn was taken around our mast and Williams, 
calculating how much to take in so as to bring the spar 
against the wreck, to give the men something graspable 
to leap for, had the haw'ser hauled in. Our deck was 
slippery and rocking. 

The sea was running high but steadily, and the poop 
was flooded with spray, but no more big waves came 
over. If they had, the Sally Martin would have gone on 
her way alone. 

The men gave a hand with a hearty shout. Even 
Davenant pulled, though without the shout. Hawkins 
laid his enormous weight against the line, and little Raikes 
yelled cheerily. To pull a hundred yards of hawser 
with a stop-water bent to it is work for a capstan, or 
better, for a donkey-engine. 

Miss Davenant was shivering. Her face was pale, her 
lips were blue, actually blue as indigo. But from the 
way she looked at that hawser and the struggling, 
tugging men I knew that under her cape her hands were 
clenched and that she strained with them. 

The spar actually struck the protruding keel of the 
wreck, coming almost directly below the yard where half 
a dozen men clung in a desperate companionship. Before 
it struck some had jumped — and were at once swirled 
away by the eager water. 


WILD BLOOD 


156 


It was not easy to be sure of what one saw in that 
brief time and amid that boiling foam and those lunging 
waves ; but it seemed that two or three caught hold, and 
again and again it appeared that all were shaken off. 
They were so covered with water that one could not tell. 
Probably one was crushed, as it appeared when the spar 
bumped into the wreck. 

We could distinctly hear men left in the rigging pray- 
ing and one strong voice cursing. 

The wreck was setting with that — no, this isn’t a 
freak phrase — with that slow rapidity that comes over a 
ship, which, having struggled valiantly, gives up. That 
is, it sank steadily, perceptibly, and yet with a slowness 
that eminently befits the inevitable. There is no need for 
haste in doom. 

We feared, and with reason as the ship was now 
rapidly sinking, that the spar would get caught in the 
rigging and be drawn down. Another five minutes and 
the proud four-master would be gone. If none came 
from her deck to ours, we would have to assure one 
another that the sight of her had not been a dream ; that 
we really saw it. So completely, with such utter finality, 
does the ocean wipe out her tragedies. 

There was one man left on that wreck who did not 
yield to the decisions of fortune. Luck decreed that he 
should be left dangling from the lee side when the spar 
came within reach; but luck seems to have been meant 
for those who do not care to put forward their own 
efforts. 

He fought his way across that yard as he had not 
fought before. Men too timid to leap for the water and 
snatch at the only chance — no matter how desperate — to 
be rescued, were scarcely of the fiber to stop so deter- 


WILD BLOOD 


157 


mined a man as himself. He smote and pushed. Fellows 
— so it seemed — who would not jump for the chance of 
being saved fell away, frightened, to escape his blows. 
It may be that they had reached a suicidal despair, and 
plunged out of life to escape a last buffeting from heavy 
fists. No doubt they had had enough of blows. Most 
men have had enough to win tears from Heaven. Let us 
hope the records are honest that tell of suffering as well 
as of sin. If so, there will be roistering songs echoed 
through the marble halls, and strange-looking saints 
rolling drunkenly down the Golden Street. 

That big man did not hesitate. He leaped, and we 
could tell that he missed. As if to taunt him, a wave's 
crest flung the spar up so that for an instant it seemed 
suspended in air, and the figure of another man was 
hanging there wildly, formless as a rag. 

But the man of a dozen battles in the rigging had 
not jumped to drown. He must have been a powerful 
swimmer. He drove for that spar as a man fights for 
life ; and that was what he fought for. 

“Slack away!” Williams cried. 

And the hawser was paid out to give more drift to 
the spar; but before the line paid out had affected the 
position of the spar, the man had reached it. He clinched 
one arm about it, threw his feet over, and raised the other 
arm in a gesture of triumph. We heard his shout. 

The next instant we saw that he was alone on the spar. 
I thought to myself, grudgingly admiring him, that he 
must be amphibian ; perhaps scales were on his body. He 
was under water more than above it. How he managed 
to breathe I do not know. 

Scientific men in their wisdom say that the rudimen- 
tary gills> inherited from piscatorial ancestors* are in the 


158 


WILD BLOOD 


throats of all of us. I sometimes suspected natives of 
using those gills still; they seemed so indifferent as to 
whether they were under water or had their noses out. 
Williams was like that, too. And this man. 

Williams again, was tense and active. His words 
cracked. Men jumped, not through fear but eagerness. 

“Throw your weight to it, men. Heave-o! Now, 
altogether. Heave-o ! Now — heave-o !” 

And each heave-o was answered with a chorus of 
strained grunts. Hawkins, with a turn of the hawser 
about his enormous body, braced himself like an anchor 
with feet against the coaming of the companion and took 
up and held all the slack that came over the taf frail. 

The spar now trailed dead astern, and we had passed 
the wreck. Williams stood first to the hawser, and after 
him a line of men like a tug-of-war team. At times the 
sea seemed to snap the spar back, and the hawser hummed 
out of the water, shivering spray ; and at such moments, 
Williams and the others would have been forced to let the 
line play out except for Hawkins, braced like a mud-hook 
in a rock-pile. 

The pull of the hawser and spar assisted me materially 
at the helm in bringing the schooner around so that the 
wind was astern, and the sickening, unsteadying roll as 
she had drifted down in the seaway was gone. I had my 
head turned over my shoulders most of the time. It may 
have been bad seamanship, but I never claimed — except 
deceitfully to Davenant — to have any other kind. 

The wreck went down very slowly, but down, down, 
down, with sodden heaviness ; and there were still figures 
in the rigging. When only the tip of the forecastle was 
visible the water about it was suddenly flung up as from 
an explosion. I had heard that decks blew up from air- 


WILD BLOOD 


159 


pressure in sinking ships, but I thought it one of the 
myths of the sea. 

There was more than the burst of water; a sullen, 
smothered roar followed, and the ship vanished — even 
the mast going hastily out of sight from where, for an 
instant, it had alone been visible like a desperate implor- 
ing arm. 

No wreckage that I noticed came up; and for a few 
moments there was a white surge of waters, as if the 
wolf-waves had bent their heads to the feast. Then the 
high swells rolled over and over the spot, scattering the 
swirl of foam, and there was no mark or sign to tell where 
the mighty ship had gone. Only one left of her crew, 
and he was smotheringly wrapped about a piece of wood, 
from which any moment he might be washed. 

“Was what he did murder ?” 

The question without being invited yelped at my 
thoughts. 

“Was it murder to hasten by two ticks of the clock 
the death of doomed men ? Murder to knock the weaker 
aside — who would have failed had they tried — and snatch 
his own life from the sea ? 

“I don't envy God," I said to myself. 

I felt that the man would never be brought on deck. 
Someway it seemed to me that, for one thing, Fate was 
too ironical to allow success to such overweening 
impudence from mere men. Fate might, in her cynical 
mood, bring our ship out of the night to sight the wreck ; 
permit the incredible chance of hawser and wood to drift 
through a storming sea and reach that wreck; let one 
man of a score kick his fellows and Death, too-, aside 
and beat through the waves to grasp that wood, and let 


i6o 


WILD BLOOD 


him hang on until he was within reach of grasping, 
succoring arms — then pluck him off. 

But as much as she had meddled with him, Fate did 
not know Hurricane Williams. That — a flip of a finger 
— for her ; as for any of her sex. Fate was too feminine 
to have his respect. 

Believe it or not, I don't care. But Williams in his 
madness probably guessed what Fate intended: that the 
man, weakened, half — more than half — strangled, would 
be shaken off when he was raised between water and 
deck. He would' probably slip down the spar as a ring 
from a stick. 

I am not telling this to be believed. I am telling it so 
I shall never have to reproach myself for shunning the 
truth for fear of being thought a liar. 

What happened was this : When the hawser had been 
hauled in so that the man lay almost under our stern, and 
he made no move, gave no recognition of his near 
safety, and could not be aroused by shouts, but hung on 
as if frozen there in the death-grip, then Williams — carry- 
ing a line, but with none about him — slipped down that 
hawser, into the sea, and made the line fast about the 
body of the unconscious man. It is simple to tell it; 
and landsmen may believe it. 

Then Williams, hand over hand, climbed up that 
swaying, rocking hawser, being bumped and battered 
against the ship, and was seized and dragged on board 
by the eager arms of men who had cursed him hourly 
from that Australian night when he had herded them on 
to a stolen ship. Together, hawser and line were hauled 
up ; and the man did slip* from the spar, and but for the 
line about his waist he would have plunged into the sea. 
His body was actually cramped rigid in 1 the position of 


WILD BLOOD 


161 


arms and legs circling the spar — such had been his 
determination to hang on. And he was dragged on board 
the Sally Martin a drowned man. 

“Fate wins !” I said to myself. 

But mere drowning was nothing to Williams. Fever- 
ishly he worked and set others to work, and they rubbed 
and slapped those big limbs into relaxation. 

The body was lifted face down- so that water ran 
from the man’s throat and nose, and for three unyielding 
hours men were kept at work over that unconscious 
figure — long after it began to breathe they rubbed and 
moved the arms to aid the lungs. 

And not for a moment of any of that time was Dula 
Davenant off the deck. Her cheeks were no longer pale. 
They were flushed. 

So it was that “Red” Shaylor, mate of the Roanoke , 
bound from San Francisco to Sydney, came on board 
the Sally Martin. 


CHAPTER VIII 


TROUBLES, TROUBLES EVERYWHERE! 

T REALIZED in a few days that Dula Davenant was 
* making a companion of me. I came near saying “a 
friend,” which shows how quick men are to assume' too 
much from the slight, if not dubious, attention of women 
— if the women are attractive. 

She was often near me. She spoke to me casually and 
stood as if trying to say something more, but hesitating. 

I did not understand. It embarrassed me just a little. 
Not much, for she was pretty without being at all like 
other women whom I had thought pretty. 

Perhaps my taste is generous. Besides there are so 
few uninteresting women in the world. None if the 
dominant chords of their personality are struck. Though 
a woman is far from being a lyre in my fingers to play 
on as I please. More often I am soft clay in hers. 

I asked myself what she was wanting; and myself 
gave no answer. With a sense of agitation, a real 
flutter, I at last perceived that she was treating me as the 
lesser of two evils. She came near me, stood near me, 
talked and pretended to talk to me to avoid Red Shaylor, 
late of the Roanoke. 

The first person Red Shaylor had seen when he 
opened his eyes in Williams’s bed had been Miss Daven- 
ant; and she had filled them. He had slept for hours 
without becoming conscious. And she, since there was 

162 


WILD BLOOD 


163 


work and lots of it for the tired men, had, without rest 
herself, but with that woman’s substitute for rest — a 
careful toilet — sat by him to watch. 

I do not suppose there was any kindness in her, any 
tenderness at all. Just passion, and not that as the word 
is generally used. 

I believe she would have let Red Shaylor, or any 
other man, die without a flicker of her eyelid if it had 
not been that every protoplasmic cell of her belonged — in 
that utter way that women once in a lifetime, never 
twice, perhaps most of them never the once, give them- 
selves to some man — to Williams. 

That he did not want her was of no consequence. No 
more than the wanting, the intense desire, of other men 
would have changed her attitude toward them. She 
loved him. 

Love to a woman usually means petting. But that 
isn’t love. It is merely gratification of the desire to 
have her fur stroked, and pink ribbons put around her 
neck, and bowls of thick cream for her little red tongue 
to lick, and a soft cushion before a hearth. Women 
pretend the cushion and hearth show the domestic instinct. 
Then, along comes a stranger. Love bursts open the 
heart of the petted woman, and out into the storm and 
mud, to be perhaps a lean alley-cat and grow gaunt and 
hungry, the woman goes. That is sin — and only the 
sinful know that fierce, heedless, sacrificial love-passion 
that in life is all that the poets claim for it in romance. 
So Dula Davenant loved. 

For that reason she sat in Williams’s cabin and 
watched beside the man Williams had pulled from the 
water, and perhaps stroked his hard, rough forehead and 
thought of Williams. 


164 


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Red Shaylor was an oak of a man, gnarled and hard. 
His hair was sandy; not red, for instance, as mine. 

He had an old scar, big as half a hand, on the side 
of his head, filling the space between cheek, temple and 
ear. Maybe somebody caught him from the side when 
he wasn’t looking, but did not hit hard enough. 

His face was molded thickly and firmly, every feature 
prominent and well shaped to the point where refinement 
would have begun had the features not been so thick. 
The face looked as if it might have been molded roughly 
by a good artist who had abandoned the clay, having 
perhaps become dissatisfied, or convinced that after all 
his ideal could not be worked into that lumpish counte- 
nance. 

Shaylor was big-chested. He was scratched and 
blackened with bruises. 

He told us that his name was Red Shaylor. There 
was a certain harsh pride in the way he said it. None 
of us knew of him. He seemed rather to think that some 
of us might have heard his name. He had been going up 
and down the sea for twenty years, he said. 

Men called him Red Shaylor. He repeated that. It 
couldn’t have been because of his hair, and certainly not 
because of his complexion. 

Dula said that when he awakened he lay motionless a 
long time, looking at her. She thought he was paralyzed 
or something, for he did not answer even when she 
repeatedly spoke. 

He explained later, with a curious watchful air as if 
to see whether everybody was listening — it was an air that 
we soon got used to, for he talked much — that he thought 
he had died, and couldn’t imagine why he was not in 
hell. 


[WILD BLOOD 


165 

He had heard of Williams. Dula had told him, no 
doubt with a good deal of the restrained pride which I 
noticed — I was looking for it, or any other signs — when 
she mentioned Williams or referred to him. 

I know Shaylor did not notice the pride. He noticed 
nothing that required the least psychological penetration. 
He was made of coarse clay; the thing called delicacy, 
either of mind or body, was as remote from him as from 
a rhinoceros. By that I do not mean what mere vulgarity 
implies. But, for instance, when Williams came in the 
first thing Shaylor said was, after half-turning and 
rising on his elbow and staring with a sort of loose- 
jawed curiosity: 

“So you are Hurricane Williams, are you?” 

And if there had been nothing else that manner and 
question made Dula Davenant hate him. I, who had 
followed Williams in, hated him too. 

Williams ignored the question, ignored the manner, 
asked how he felt and did not appear to listen to the 
answer. With a surprising directness he caught Shay- 
lor’s wrist and felt of the pulse, sent for food and went 
out. Without a word, without looking back, she went out 
too. 

“Say, Mate, who is she?” Shaylor demanded, sitting 
up. 

“I’ve heard that her name was Miss Davenant.” 

“His woman?” 

“Whose?” 

“This Hurricane Williams’s. Blast me, why he’s a 
little man. I thought ” 

“Yes, it’s the general opinion. Among those who 
never ran under his bow.” 

“What you talkin’ about ?” 


1 66 


WILD BLOOD 


“That Williams must be a giant. We’ve got a giant 
on board, too. His name’s Hawkins. Ask him how big 
Williams is. You’ll learn something interesting.” 

“Look here, what you givin’ me? You never heard 
o’ me? Red Shaylor they call me. That’s his woman, 
huh?” 

“As a matter of fact, he’s not so very little as you call 
it; round a hundred and eighty. But all his weight’s 
inside of him. Jumps out now and then. Talk with 
Hawkins.” 

“Say, I’ve asked you three times. Is that his ?” 

The word he used may be only suggested. It is the 
vilest that coarse tongues apply to the woman utterly 
degraded. I was neither shocked nor surprised; it was 
perfectly natural that he should say that. 

“Do you know how you got on board ?” I asked. 

“I caught that topmast you threw over. Good work 
an’ ” 

“No. You were dragged up by your toes. This 
LIurricane Williams — the little man — went over the side 
after you. In that sea, too.” 

Raulson, the cook, came in with a tray and I went 
out. 

In the confusion of work and incidents and weariness 
— but not nervousness, my body had lost its power to be 
thrilled or agitated; nothing mattered; I was sober — I 
don’t remember just the sequence of happenings, and 
probably wouldn’t use it if I did. 

I had forgotten my mutinous agreement with Daven- 
ant. His was the better memory. There was, in a 
slight way, a shock to me in being reminded. Much had 
happened since then. And the joke I had been in mu- 
tinous talk at that time was now quite remote. 


.WILD BLOOD 


167 


“This man Shaylor — it will be easier with him?” 
Davenant inquired, his eyes askance and the rows of 
white teeth showing through the black herbage of his 
face. 

I think that Davenant tried to be familiar, perhaps in- 
timate. He did not know how. It is really an art, or 
rather a gift. 

I noticed the same involuntary coldness in Dula. She 
had much that was not voluntary, but even when she 
tried to talk familiarly with me there was an unconscious 
hesitancy. With Davenant the effort was quite close to 
awkwardness, if there can be such a thing in a person 
who nevertheless seems entirely composed and at ease. 

“This man Shaylor,” Davenant had said. “It will be 
easier with him?” 

“Shaylor? Shaylor?” I asked with rising inflec- 
tion, as if much surprised. “After Williams pulled him 
out by the nose! Why, Mr. Davenant, Williams saved 
his life!” 

He looked at me studiously. There seemed something 
to be said for that point. It may have been that he knew 
what happened the afternoon Shaylor came on board; 
or it may have been that in his cynical understanding of 
human nature he believed that thirty pieces of silver had 
been more than was needed to bribe Judas. 

Bending sails on to a schooner at sea in a light breeze 
with swells running high, is not the easiest work for 
even old hands. And Williams wanted the sails on. 
He was being carried off his course. 

I must say it for Raikes, that he did his best, ably 
and willingly. I must say for myself that I shirked as 


1 68 


WILD BLOOD 


much as I could, having a very strong aversion to any 
kind of work aloft — or below. Any place. 

Williams needed the help of a real seaman. Of sev- 
eral. Shaylor had had six or seven hours’ rest, and there 
was nothing the matter with him but a little stiffness and 
a few bruises; though a more humane skipper would 
probably have allowed him to rest for a week. 

Williams sent one of the men to tell Shaylor to come 
on deck. I don’t know what manner of message the 
fellow delivered ; but he came back with these words : 

“The bloke says for you to bleedin’ well go t’ ’ell, 
sir!” 

Not a muscle of Williams’s body moved. He did not 
hesitate. He simply said snappishly, but no less so than 
in giving the first order: 

“McGuire! On deck! Tell him.” 

I found Shaylor sitting up, on his face the satisfied 
grin of a man waiting for trouble. He was one of those 
bucko mates that love women and blows about equally; 
one of those men whose hard life has taught them to 
take and give with their fists. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “That guy tell ’im what I 
said?” 

“He probably softened it down a bit. What did you 
say ?” 

Shaylor loosened a score of curdling oaths. 

“Yes, he softened it down quite a bit. Supposing 
you come on deck and tell him that. I can’t remember 
it all. He ought to hear it.” 

“By God, I’d tell him !” 

“I am sure you would. Yes, I am very sure of it. 
And I want ito hear you.” 

It would be difficult to say just how Shaylor’s atti- 


WILD BLOOD 169 

tude impressed me. I believe I understood it; that is, 
had his view-point. 

He probably thought of Williams as that man who 
figured in the half-drunken gossip of sailors’ boarding- 
houses and saloons : The outlaw who hadn’t the courage 
to be a pirate and make his stake; the “nigger” lover; 
the bully. And possibly Shaylor was filled from the 
same sources of resentment as is a pretty woman when 
she hears of one whose personal charms have brought 
her more notice. That had an influence, I am sure. 

For another thing, as the lone survivor of the Roa- 
noke , Shaylor naturally felt himself entitled to certain 
consideration. The lone survivor is almost always for a 
time regarded as something of a hero. And being by 
nature one who resented a bullying order from anybody 
not authoritatively above him, and seldom averse to a 
fight, he answered indignantly. 

In retrospect I really sympathize with his feeling. 
Williams would offend anybody. He was direct as a 
bullet, more unfeeling than a huntsman among his 
hounds. The result of the influences I have mentioned, 
and possibly others I have not thought of — to say 
nothing more of Shaylor’s general character — was that 
he was angry. 

“I’m Red Shaylor,” he said, squaring his shoulders. 

“My dear Mr. Shaylor, I haven’t a doubt in the 
world of it. If anybody else should pop over our rail 
an’ insist on his being Red Shaylor, I would call him a 
liar. Yes, sir. I would!” 

He stared at me. I almost put it down that he 
stared at me through parted lips. At least he seemed 
unable to stare without loosening his jaw. 

“What’s the matter with ever’body on this craft? 


170 


WILD BLOOD 


All got your ballast shifted. Who in hell could come 
on board an’ say he was Red Shaylor ? I’m him. Never 
saw such damn fools.” 

I bowed discreetly before the gale, and reminded him 
of my wish, the wish of all the crew, that he would go on 
deck and personally deliver his message to Williams. I 
assured him we would all rejoice, possibly cheer. 

“Think I’m ’fraid o’ that ?” 

I said it was impossible to think so. And added 
craftily that it would be impossible to think so if he 
went on deck, as I suggested. 

Then up rose Red Shaylor and hurriedly got into the 
shirt and tarred trousers that had been placed beside his 
bed. The play of his naked muscles as he dressed was 
impressive. He was a powerful man. 

Barefooted, he stamped out, his shoulders drooping 
and his arms swinging with resolution. I came patter- 
ing after, eager not to miss a word. 

Williams was standing on the forecastle-head looking 
aloft. 

Shaylor came up and stopped truculently. 

Williams did not notice him. But every man of us 
saw, and watched. 

“Say, d’you send for me?” Shaylor demanded. 

Williams glanced at him; then directly, meaningly, 
but only as if he saw a familiar seaman, told him to take 
charge of bending on the mainmast sail, adding that 
these were green hands and he would have to show them 
what to do. He pointed to the sail, folded at the 
foot of the mast, and with a gesture put three or four 
men — myself among them — at Shaylor’s disposal. 

That was all. Williams turned his head aloft to 
where Raikes was setting the block for the leech-line and 


WILD BLOOD 


nt 

swearing eloquently at a sheave that refused to move. 
He had begun to swear at the precise instant that Will- 
iams looked up. 

Raikes suddenly pretended great difficulty in getting 
on with the work. A moment before, though with only 
one eye, he had been watching as hard as any of us. 

Red Shaylor hesitated. He stared at Williams for a 
handful of seconds, looked aft toward the sail, up at the 
mast, again at Williams; and all might have been well 
had he not by the merest chance allowed his eyes to rest 
for a moment on my face. 

I gave no sign at all. But that reminded him that I 
had heard his boast. 

I haven’t a doubt but that men in sober minutes have 
done murder to make good drunken boasts. Though 
they carelessly break any other kind of a promise, they 
respect their own boastings. 

Shaylor began. Because he talked rapidly, self- 
infuriated, he probably got out a half dozen of his hard, 
curdling oaths — then he went backward down the fore- 
castle ladder, having straightened up to evade the flash 
of a fist at his face, and thereby receiving the one in- 
tended — with a hundred and eighty pounds behind it — 
for his stomach. Shaylor doubled up much like a rag 
dummy and, because he had no footing behind him, fell 
as if actually knocked through the air. 

It was a smashing blow and a crashing fall. But it 
did not kill him. It should have, but men of that day 
had their souls sealed up in tougher flesh than is common 
now. 

I had seen Williams in fights of all kinds. I never 
knew him really to be taken off his guard, unaware. 
That was probably because he was always tense, always 


172 


WILD BLOOD 


strained, always suspicious, and had the remarkable 
faculty of throwing himself in any direction as suddenly 
as an arrow leaves a bowstring. The irony of having to 
knock down a man whom he had but a few hours before 
pulled from the sea was merely another of those queer, 
cynical bits of fortune that were always coming upon 
him. 

It was not a cheer that came from the men. There 
were impulsive exclamations, congratulatory. Too re- 
pressed to have been insincere ; too suddenly spoken for 
being intended to please Williams. That is, they had had 
no time to be prepared to cheer the winner. It was all 
over in five seconds, if not less. 

I was surprised to see their sympathy was with Will- 
iams. I had not been with him when he and Hawkins 
fought. 

No doubt the fact that Shaylor refused work when 
they were short-handed had something to do with it. 
Then too men are always inclined to admire the one who 
deals a swift knock-out. Nothing could have been 
swifter than Williams’s blow. 

The fact that Shaylor fell from the forecastle-head 
was incidental. He would have been knocked to any 
deck. 

Under any circumstances, that their sympathy should 
have been with Williams was unexpected. Rather I 
would have thought them ready to cheer if he had been 
bound to a mast and flayed. 

For the second time that day Shaylor recovered con- 
sciousness on our deck and found himself bruised and 
nearly filled with salt water. Two or three buckets full 
were thrown over him, and he was then left alone, ig- 
nored. There was no time to nurse him. He was dead 


WILD BLOOD 


173 


for all that any one knew or tried to find out. Well, if 
he was, why waste time on him ? If he wasn’t he’d come 
around all right. 

Many a man had died under a skipper’s fist or boot in 
those seas, and whoever was curious enough to read the 
log found he had fallen from a yard-arm and broken his 
neck. True enough, a few hours before Williams had 
worked over his body intensely and apparently as hope- 
lessly as a demon-caught soul weaving ropes of sand to 
climb from hell. 

A few minutes later, ten or fifteen or somewhere 
around that, Shaylor came to. I was working with the 
mainsail, but I had kept a curious eye on him. It took 
him a moment or two to realize where he was : a second 
or so more to remember what had happened. The ex- 
pression on his face was almost amusing. 

I can’t say that Williams noticed him. There was 
little that he did not notice, even when he wasn’t looking. 
But I know that he spoke to the fellow who had just 
been relieved at the helm and was coming forward, and 
who stood behind Shaylor — at that moment sitting up — 
when he, Williams, said: 

“Go on that boom and bear a hand.” 

Shaylor heard the command given to another man, 
and misunderstood. He answered, “Aye, aye, sir,” 
struggled dizzily to his feet and went across the deck to 
work. 

It was characteristic of Williams to ignore what had 
happened. I don’t know what, if anything, he may after- 
ward have said to Shaylor. He must have said some- 
thing, for Shaylor and Raikes divided the authority of 
mate between them. 

I suppose each thought himself second in command ; 


174 


WILD BLOOD 


and neither was. There were no seconds in command, 
or thirds. 

Shaylor asked me privately what Williams had hit 
him with. 

“Do you really want to know?” 

There was a touch of mystery in my tone. 

He said that he did. 

I whispered: 

“His fist!” 

It was Hawkins who estimated Shaylor as a bad one. 
The men forward, he confided with me, all said that 
Williams ought to have killed him. They couldn’t un- 
derstand his being given the deck. 

“I’ve known ’em like him, Red-Top. They toady t’ 
the skipper an’ kick cabinboys overboard when nobody’s 
lookin’. They carry a grudge same as you an’ me carry 
a thirst. Never lose it. They got ever’thing that makes 
a fighter but the stuff that makes a licked man win. 

“He’s told Raikes he’d get ’im — get Williams. It’s 
bad that woman’s on board. Seen the way he looks a>t 
’er? No? 

“Me and Raikes ain’t gettin’ chummy. But” he 

raised a thick forefinger to the side of his head — “see 
them ears? See the size of ’em? Well? Them’s ears! 
The Lord knowed what He was doin’ when He put ’em 
there.” 

“Well?” 

“An’ I’m tellin’ you that fellow’ll make trouble. He’s 
been talkin’ with the fellows. Tryin’ to find out how they 
like Williams.” 

“And?” 

“They hate ’im, o’ course. Why, Raulson cries on 
my shoulder ever’ night, tellin’ me about the money he’s 


WILD BLOOD 


175 


makin’ back in Turkee. But he has to quit tellin’ me 
about his cookin’ an’ goin’ into details. I’m hungry 
’nough as it is . 

“Say, an’ Davenant says good mornin’ to me, same 
as if I was a duke or somethin’. I’ve never seen him 
speak to anybody but you an’ that girl. ’Fraid he’ll be 
contaminated, I s’pose.” 

I asked if Davenant had not talked with him. 
Hawkins said never but once. After the fight with Will- 
iams “he asked how I liked the weather an’ looked at 
my nose. Oh, he did say he’d see to it ’at I had justice. 
W’at’s that? Justice ? I said: 

“ 'Thankee, sir. I’d sure like to ’ave some.’ 

“How’d that monkey-faced, double-coated black- 
beard that moves like he was ’fraid he’d break somethin’ 
goin’ get justice out o’ Hurricane Williams?” 

The sentence was in one breath, and Hawkins puffed 
from the effort. A long pause. Then the point to the 
conversation came out as Hawkins started to waddle off. 

“S’posin’ you say somethin’ to Williams about Shay- 
lor. Won’t you, Red-Top?” 

The simple way out was to say that I would ; though 
nothing that could be said by man or oracle would make 
Williams more strainedly alert, more constantly sus- 
picious. I doubt if he really trusted me, who could 
probably have been urged into treachery, bought, if 
somebody had offered something I wanted; not mere 
money and trinkets. If somebody had offered me the 
chance to live under a coconut-tree near a rum mill, on 
an island where there were no mosquitoes or mission- 
aries, — why, if a man is tempted beyond his strength 
should he be condemned for seeming weak? 

But I was not tempted in the least to carry Haw- 


176 


WILD BLOOD 


kins’s warning to Williams. He seemed to resent such 
tattling; perhaps in the same way that he would have 
resented it had I furtively, confidentially, whispered into 
his low-bent ear that I suspected the ocean of being salt. 

Dula Davenant liked the deck. Davenant himself 
spent long hours of both night and day stretched on his 
bed in a kind of reptilian immobility; brooding, no 
doubt. Looking ahead to Dakaru and dreaming of a 
nabob’s wealth. 

She was on deck most of the time. Williams was 
too. Her eyes were never off him. 

In the week that went by after the storm she got into 
the way of coming up near me if I chanced to be loafing 
or at the wheel. It must have been that she wanted to 
compensate me for the obvious dislike Shaylor began to 
show for me about the time he learned I was, or was 
considered, Williams’s jackal. 

He went out of his way to use his authority when he 
had the deck, or didn’t have it. But I knew more about 
“soldiering” than any field-marshal ; so that didn’t 
worry me much. Shaylor’s irrepressible wish to bear 
himself in upon her notice caused him to speak to me 
when she was standing near, and to do so in a way that 
would have made a less discreet man fight. 

Since I am telling this story, probably I should arouse 
more respect for myself by telling how I made Mr. 
Shaylor back water, take in sail, put down his helm and 
go about. Probably it should make no difference that 
nothing of the kind happened. The nearest approach to 
it was late one quiet night, when by some lapse of atten- 
tion on the part of the wind it got almost dead astern and 
whistled softly as a shy lover below a lattice window. I 


WILD BLOOD 


1 77 


don't know what Shaylor was doing. Probably he was 
up in the bows hobnobbing with the lookout. Anyway 
he came on to the poop and at once became filled with 
excitement. 

I was sitting on the skylight, smoking. Dula was 
sitting beside me. The wheel was lashed. We were 
probably a point and a half off the course. 

Before I knew that he really meant to touch me he 
had grabbed me by the neck and flung me to the deck. 
He rushed forward to kick me, and all the while he 
roared mightily, proclaiming to listeners on the stars — 
if there were any — that I was this, that and something 
else worthless to a ship. 

But he did not kick me. Even a worm will turn 
though an elephant’s hoof is coming down; and I had a 
gun under my shirt. Shaylor saw it. He could scarcely 
help but see it in the moonlight when it was jerked out 
and pointed at him. 

I didn’t shoot. I seldom do the things I should. Nor 
did Shaylor kick me. We both forgot the presence of 
a woman, and I used some highly colored words too. 
In a moment’s pause, when each was taking a little 
breathing-time, he said: 

“ ’Fore I get through with you, you’ll know I’m Red 
Shaylor!” 

I went to the wheel and Dula went below. She had 
remained until the last word was spoken. There was no 
timid fleeing from curses and harsh voices in her. She 
heard it all, and saw. 

I don’t know what manner of women Shaylor had 
wooed and won in his life. Probably the kind that 
merge themselves into the shadows of piles on wharves 
and wait in darkness so men may not clearly see what 


i;8 


WILD BLOOD 


records have been etched into their faces. Anyway, he 
actually seemed to think that Dula was, if not impressed, 
certainly not repulsed by his outbursts. 

And, if it was a thing to be thankful for, I have him 
ito thank that she and I became rapidly something like 
friends. True enough there was already a ghostly secret 
between us, but it had not been of much influence. 

Incidentally, Shaylor reached Williams’s ear first 
with his complaint. Had he delayed twenty years, he 
would still have been first. 

I knew better than to carry a grievance of the kind to 
Williams. One should have broken bones, or best of all 
a broken neck, if he expected Williams to show even a 
remote sympathy. 

I don’t know what happened, but I imagine that Will- 
iams listened to him, listened with back half-turned as 
if paying no attention, yet poised in a curious stoop- 
shoulder attitude with weight on one foot, ready to pivot 
and strike. It was a long, long time before he relaxed 
from that sort of pose when I talked with him alone. 
Treachery was something he expected and seemed to in- 
vite by a strained, but nevertheless deceiving, appear- 
ance of carelessness. 

I haven’t the faintest idea what reply he made to 
Shaylor. He never mentioned the incident to me, ex- 
cept so obliquely as to seem to have no connection with 
it. 

“McGuire, why are you always around that woman ?” 

Women were all alike to him. He would trust no one 
of them to be undeceitful and worse, unless she were in a 
coffin with the lid screwed down. But then he knew the 
feel of a hangman’s knot, and had had the trap give way 


WILD BLOOD 


179 


from under his feet, all because of the lies of a woman — 
a woman he had loved. 

“This woman,” I said, “keeps other people’s secrets 
better than her own.” 

He looked inquiringly. 

“I don’t know why Davenant’s bound Dakaru-ward. 
But some o’ the things she’s tried to keep from God, I 
know. A woman usually shows her worst side to Him — 
when she loves !” 

Williams made an impatient gesture of disgust. 

“Give me time, give me time, Skipper. Rome wasn’t 
built out of strawless bricks. And they had lots to drink. 
She’ll talk to me one of these lonesome nights if Red 
Shaylor doesn’t put in his oar. 

“He calls himself Red Shaylor. Do you catch that, 
Skipper ? It isn’t because of his hair. It isn’t because of 
his face. Must be because of his hands. 

“I’d guess he’s knocked men to hell from other places 
than the rigging of a wrecked ship. A red-handed dog, 
and proud of it.” 

Williams said something that included “good 
sailor.” 

“Yes, and I’m a good shot with a revolver. Can hit 
anybody that gets close enough to kick me. Supposin’ 
the Lord had made ’em big enough to do it — how would 
you like to be kicked? Well, my hide’s just as tender as 
anybody’s.” 

I was boasting, no doubt. A fellow often lets his 
tongue act valiant. I can ruthlessly, slap-slam-smash, kill 
mosquitoes and flies — but things that bleed? It makes 
me rather queasy at my stomach to think of that, though 
if events happen fast and my blood is warmed up I can 
make as much noise with a gun as anybody. 


i8o 


WILD BLOOD 


But I wasn’t to make much with mine on the Sally 
Martin. That night, during the two or three minutes 
that I slept the sleep of the conscienceless, some one stole 
the gun, took it right out of my bed. 

It isn’t much trouble to work a schooner. Nothing 
like a square-rigger. There would have been plenty of 
time for everybody to loaf but in his boyhood Williams 
must have used one of those copy-books that require the 
young pupil to write down fifty times that “the devil 
finds work for idle hands.” 

And the men growled. Of course. Look out for sail- 
ors that don’t curse skipper, sea, ship and selves. 

The men did not talk with me ; but Hawkins was one 
of them. They accepted him. He sang and told long 
monotonous yarns, and had that fine disregard for the 
truth that deceives no one, but interests all. 

“I hope you give a cannibal indigestion !” he said to 
me when he discovered that he had been shifted to the 
helm when Red Shaylor had the deck. “All us fellows 
for’ard hate him — . No. This Red bloke. Williams 
don’t fight with his jaw.” 

Probably because Williams wanted to make sure the 
course was held, he kept Hawkins and me alternating at 
the wheel, four hours on and four off, with an occasional 
lapse through the day when he was on deck himself. 
Then we had to work, always work. It was swab, scrub, 
worm and parcel, fling the log-chip, work at chafing- 
gear — and so prove to the forecastle that we weren’t 
being petted. More of Williams’s craziness. 

Only he probably never thought of proving anything 
to the forecastle. He could find more to do on that boat 


WILD BLOOD 


181 

than any other brute of a captain would have discovered 
on a full-rigger. 

Thrown with Raikes through the night hours, we 
talked a little. Only I never quite liked the light in that 
impudent solitary eye of his. Probably he did not like 
the dull stare of mine. But he talked. 

Mid-watch at sea are the hours of confessional, of 
confidences. A little craft, winged with white, floats 
over the black waters that are fretted with evanescent 
fires like myriad gems sparkling and vanishing; and 
the ship groans and moans and creaks so that a fellow if 
he has imagination at all must talk a bit to take his mind 
off ghosts and things. 

Raikes said he went to sea at twelve. At sixteen he 
was A. B. and had had two ribs broken and an arm 
cracked by a bo’s’n. At seventeen an eye was gone. A 
mate had kicked him, after knocking him down. Prob- 
ably because he wasn’t a husky. 

He never met the bo’s’n again. But he supposed they 
Tound the mate’s body in a back street at Melbourne. 
Fifteen years has passed, but he, Raikes, knew him. 

“I laid f’r ’im. Don’t the Bible say an eye for an eye ? 
I’d gouged ’is eye out, but I heard somebody cornin’. 
Hope they found ’im dead, the !” 

Raikes had gone around the world. He was an in- 
conscionable little ruffian. He was second mate once. 
Maulmain. Sold some stuff out of the cargo and got 
caught. Went to jail. Came out without papers. Laid 
for some other mate. Got him drunk. Stole his papers. 
Good joke. 

Another of my periodical jumpy moods was settling 
down on me. Raikes’s voice was better than silence. 
Anything would have been better than being alone, even 


[WILD BLOOD 


182 

Shaylor’s boastings. Someway, seamen are not ashamed 
of their crimes — if they are crimes. 

At last Raikes asked what I had against him; asked 
it as a man does when he feels, or pretends to feel, re- 
gretful, as when it seems stupid for two people who 
might be friends to be at outs. 

I mentioned that at Turkee he seemed to have guessed 
Douglas Moore was some one else. With scorn he denied 
all thought of having even thought to turn Williams up. 

He was not so facile in denying that he had more or 
less joined with Davenant to do away with Williams. 
But not to kill him ! No, no, no. How could I imagine 
such a thing? (As if anybody on board the Sally Mar- 
tin , or on any other man’s ship, could take Williams pris- 
oner without killing him!) 

Raikes cursed Davenant. With a sudden, confiden- 
tial way, as if to surprise me into telling, he asked how 
in the world I had found out. 

I stole an idea from Hawkins, and pointed to my ears. 
Then Raikes furtively warned me to warn Williams 
against Shaylor. 

I suggested that he use his own legs and tongue. 
He had. Williams hadn’t listened. 

There never was such a man. Davenant was afraid 
of him. It seemed to impress ' Raikes as queer that 
Davenant should be afraid of anybody; but of course 
Williams was Williams. 

I suggested that Raikes try telling Williams why we 
were headed Dakaru-ward. He whispered that he had 
done that too — only a few hours before. Williams had 
listened, said nothing, made no signs, no move, not a 
quiver even of interest, though Grahame of Dakaru was 
the father of Dula Davenant ! 


WILD BLOOD 183 

I made a sign, move and a quiver, almost a jump, and 
exclaimed : 

“What!” 

Raikes affirmed it. 

“You mean this black siren is a sister to that yellow- 
haired girl!” 

With that exasperating air of the man who knows, or 
thinks he knows, he shook his head. There was no white 
girl at Dakaru. He had never been there. But she was 
just a myth. The Davenants were after Grahame. He 
was rich. 

That wasn’t all. Did I know who Davenant was? 
No. He had a title. 

He didn’t know what title ; but from under the bunk 
he had heard them talking about what if it should be 
learned in the colonies and at London that a man with 
his title was — Listen: 

“That woman’s goin’ there to kill her own father !” 

Hardened little water-rat that he was, there was hor- 
ror in even his voice. My flesh was chilled as if, like 
some victim of cruel magic in the Arabian fables, I was 
being turned to stone. I shivered. 

I said it was a lie. Not because I didn’t believe it — • 
but one has to say something. I wondered, was it the 
truth? 

Hers was a cold, deadly, meditative purpose. The 
almost casual murder of Tom Gibson — how could that 
shake the foundations of a woman consecrated to the 
death of her own father ? Ugh ! 

It was a warm, white night ; but I was chilled. Some- 
thing about the word Father makes the crime of the 
lifted hand monstrous. 

But she did not seem monstrous to me. I felt that 


1 84 


WILD BLOOD 


she should. I was amazed at myself. I was horrified yet 
more than fascinated. 

On paper crime is all one color, red and damned ; and 
the one who is guilty — at a distance too remote for per- 
sonality to be felt — seems a terrible, unhuman, monstrous 
creature. Laws, customs, ethics, tabus, ignore person- 
ality. Theory denies it any extenuation whatsoever. 
But justice, with its dry, rigid formalism, is itself in- 
human. 

Heaven forbid that I should offer a word in defense 
of Dula Davenant. I am defending myself, not her. 
Had that black coat with symbolic crimson plush lining 
fallen from her and disclosed a leprous breast, I would 
have gone as far on the bowsprit as the tips of my fingers 
could find an inch of wood to hold. 

I did not flee from the murderess, the sworn parri- 
cide, the monstrous daughter, wicked, cruel woman, 
daughter of a devil. I may have thought of her with 
chilling blood, but when she stepped into sight all that I 
thought drifted away in a sort of vague mistiness. 

And it must not be fancied she was an enchantress, or 
that any strange bewitching perfumes numbed the 
senses, or charms of face made her not as other women. 
She was different, but after all only in that way that any 
one striking woman differs from another. 

At a glance I had recognized certain satanic cruelties 
in Dula Davenant, veiled by the mysteries that are fem- 
inine. I had in a way rather the inclination than the 
will to evade her. Men are moths, and moths the souls 
of dead men — women and candles are that much alike. 

Raikes had slipped down into the waist of the ship. 
I was alone at two o’clock in the morning. I tried to jig 


WILD BLOOD 185 

barefoot on the grating: my blood, icily, had stopped 
flowing. 

I hummed aloud, and quit it abruptly. 

I felt more like praying, but, not knowing how, I 
swore. Even the oaths came dully, sluggishly. There 
was no heart in them. 

Under the high wind the schooner listed to starboard 
so that I did not dare lash the helm and go searching for 
something big enough to break the new lock on Will- 
iams’s chest. Besides he was in his cabin. One footfall 
inside his door and he would be awake, even if he were 
asleep. 

He kept a light burning all night. He was usually up 
two or three times, writing, reading, appearing on deck 
first at one place and then at another, vanishing silently 
■ — always barefooted. Not for stealth but because toes 
hold a deck better than cowhide. 

Dula — Dula — Dula Davenant Grahame. Neither her 
name nor her face would get out of my head. It had no 
right to be there. I was less than the capstan to her. 
Put ears on the capstan, she would -talk to it as well. I 
wished she would come on deck — I wished anybody, any- 
thing, would come on deck. Supposing some old shaggy 
sea-monster, with human voice and head, harkened to 
any wish and came chuckling over the taf frail ? I turned 
my head quickly to make sure none was coming. 

I have never got over the feeling that one should not 
be surprised if water-gnomes, and scaly people, draped 
with sea-weed, thrust themselves up out of the black 
water in the lonesome watch hours. A sea-maiden with 
black hair and eyes and long slim white arms — extended 
in languishing implorement. What sailor would hesi- 
tate ? Perhaps those who are down in the log as suicides 


1 86 


WILD BLOOD 


have caught a glimpse of the siren face, heard the whis- 
per of her song. The sibilant, slithering froth in the 
night is like the furtive hiss of strange women, mute but 
eager for attention ; and what more than the phosphores- 
cent fire-laced splotches of ruffled water is like the 
vanishing glitter of gold-scaled, jewel-studded draperies 
about the invisible forms of fair, soft, warm bodies? 

I came out of my senseless reverie with a shiver. 
Had I heard a step on the companion stairs, and had I 
turned and caught the blur of a withdrawing head ? Too 
much imagination? I watched. I listened. 

Forward was the low mumble of voices, and now 
and then I could catch an accent. It was all very far 
away ; no companionship in that. I had heard and I had 
seen something — somebody ! Yes, but in moods like that 
I was always hearing and seeing things. 

And were those things the less real because they did 
not exist? Ask the man who shrieks to see a blood-red 
elephant climb the wall. Drunkard, says the wise men. 
The terrible deliriums are those of silent, sober men with 
a score of wasted yea,rs, a cluster of heavy, withered, dry 
memories about their necks. Of these the wise and pious 
know nothing. They will learn of them in Heaven by 
asking : 

“Who are those queer, rough-looking saints that 
stand in such high favor so near the Throne?” 

Will come the answer then: 

“Those are the first chosen of the earth, the men 
and women God so filled with passion, with courage, 
with wild wayward impulses, with all that makes life 
reckless, heedless, mad, sending them to far places and 
into fierce dangers, making them clamor the night out 
with drunken dancing and shrill, mirthless laughter, fill- 


WILD BLOOD 


187 


ing them with bitter hates and loves more bitter, so that 
they knew no ease, no peace, no rest, knew nothing of 
gentleness and quietude, and they suffered there on that 
old mud-ball of a world all that you good people, vain- 
glorious and comfortable because your passions and im- 
pulses were less gripping and griping, must suffer in 
hell before you, too, can get up near the Throne 1” 

That was a shot ! It came from the deck below. 

The wheel, spinning, left my hands. The ship 
lurched madly before the wind. So suddenly released, 
with a crazy veer she half-spun, reeled, rocking, as if to 
capsize. Frantic calls came out of the waist as the men 
dashed to the sheets. But I was gone. 

I flung myself down the companion and landed 
sprawlingly. Silence, and no one in sight; for a mo- 
ment that stretched itself tenuously into a great length of 
time no one stirred. There was not a sound. 

More dreams of open eyelids? More imagination! 
True, that shot had been muffled, but I had heard it. I 
knew that I had heard it. 

Then I heard a heavy, strained half-grunt — but 
nothing of a groan in it. 

I jumped to Williams’s door, calling his name as I 
flung it open. 

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his body dis- 
torted in the effort to pass his left hand below his right 
shoulder. His face was tense and drawn, but the teeth 
were clenched. His eyes struck me as if some actual 
physical force streamed from them. 

“In the back. Asleep. Don’t know who,” he said. 

There was a little black spot with a trickling stream 
of red just below the right collar-bone; and it was pain- 


i88 


WILD BLOOD 


ful. Sweat covered Williams’s forehead, and it hurt to 
breathe. 

I stood there in utter helplessness. I could do 
nothing. I knew nothing. I had no skill. 

It was impossible to tell how badly he was hurt. 
For one thing, the bullet had not come through. For 
another Williams would not give whatever Furies har- 
ried him the satisfaction of seeing him wince. 

He calmly tried to work his shoulder, felt about, 
pressed here and there, and except for the involuntary 
flinching that not even his will could check when he 
tried to breathe deeply, there was then little to show he 
had been wounded — but his lips were soon covered with 
blood. 

Almost at once there was the high, excited babble of 
voices, the shoving, crowding, pressing of bodies. 
Everybody came. Word went over the ship rapidly. 

I could not understand how I had been the first, how 
I had stood there so long, alone with him. It had not 
been long, and I must have come faster than I realized. 

Besides, Dula Davenant, the only person aft that I 
really trusted — not so much at that moment as for what 
followed shortly — said that she had not been sure that it 
was a shot. Something had awakened her. She thought 
it was a shot, and listened. 

She heard me come down; then it was quiet until I 
called Williams’s name. She hastily flung her cape 
about her and came. 

Williams tried to ignore her. She would not be 
ignored. Fie pushed her hands roughly away, and for 
one instant her eyes glittered ; but I saw it was the glitter 
of resolution, not that of an offended woman. 

I could write on and on forever and never put down 


WILD BLOOD 


189 


quite all that I saw and felt and thought in those few 
minutes, looking from her to Williams and back again. 
She was quiet, but uneasy; and, too, felt helpless, futile; 
but was determined not to be — though there was nothing 
in the world to be done. 

She glanced at me half-imploringly, but at once saw 
that it was useless to expect anything of men. Her face 
contracted in a little spasm of pain, and she closed her 
eyes tightly, opening them at once as she bent over and 
saw the black hole and trickling blood on his bare sun- 
burnt body. 

In frank sympathy she stroked his shoulder, with 
strong, gentle pressure urging him to lie down. He 
motioned to push her away. She stepped aside — but not 
a toe’s length farther from him. 

He was making an effort to keep his head clear, but 
vertigo was striking. He tried to rise, and reeled un- 
steadily. It was not faintness. He was dizzy. She 
pushed him back, and being dizzy he yielded, slightly 
groping. 

“A dirty coward — to shoot ’im in the back!” came 
Red Shaylor’s loud voice. 

“He’s dyin’.” 

“No. Fainted.” 

“Fainted ! See Hurricane Williams faint,” a voice of 
scorn. 

“Who’s got whisky?” 

“By the Lord God, he was a man!” 

“Well, Mr. Shaylor, guess you’re skipper now .” 

“I guess he ain’t!” 

The voice was deep as thunder, slow, as Hawkins 
laying a pair of hands on two men in front of him, pulled 
them out of the way and, regardlessly, pressed Davenant 


190 


WILD BLOOD 


against the bulkhead. There was an immediate hush. 
Hawkins’s tone implied more than he said, and the im- 
plication was understood clearly by every one — possibly 
except Shaylor. 

“I guess you ain’t — nor never will be captain o’ this 
ship,” said Hawkins, glaring at Shaylor. “You’ve said 
you’d get ’im, but there’s us on here that’ll get you, too.” 

Angry buzzing and mumbling followed. 

“You mean I done that !” demanded Shaylor. 

Williams turned restlessly. His eyes were shut and 
he shook his head as if to drive away dizziness. 

“McGuire. Get them out. Get them out. Every- 
body.” 

“You mean I done that !” Shaylor cried again. 

“Outside, all of you. Give way there. He needs air.” 

I tried to be authoritative. 

Slowly, as if no one was willing to move first and all 
were eager to see the end of the quarrel, the men moved, 
stepping backward, necks stretched to have their eyes 
nearer the behemoths that threatened fight. Davenant 
pressed flat against the wall, still composed, looking 
blacker than ever — for he had not dressed but came in 
white silk — leaned out and stared at Shaylor with sternly 
curious eyes. 

Williams lurched upright. 

“Get out !” he said, and tried to rise to his feet. 

They all gave way, but Shaylor had loosened a 
stream of curses. Davenant paused in the doorway. He 
was ready to speak to me, but I pressed my hand against 
him and closed the door. 

Shaylor’s voice continued to be heard. Hawkins 
rumbled — then they were fighting. The blows and 


.WILD BLOOD 


191 

bumping of their bodies in the narrow passageway came 
to my ears much as if they had been two bulls fighting. 

Williams was talking to me, or curiosity, if not anx- 
ious sympathy for Hawkins, would have caused me at 
least to open the door. 

Williams, tortured and dizzy, straining himself to 
seem composed, lay on the bed, his eyes still closed. He 
did not know that Dula remained in the room, she stood 
so quietly. 

“McGuire ?” 

“Yes, Skipper.” 

“Take her into Lelela.” He was speaking of the ship. 
“Stores there. Mine. Under my bed — a case of rifles. 
Plungers in that chest.” 

Williams, lest a mutinous crew should get hold of the 
rifles, had removed the firing-pins. Then quietly: 

“You can’t trust anybody. I don’t know about Haw- 
kins. Maybe he’s all right. Shaylor, Davenant, Raikes 
—watch them. And that woman. McGuire, that 
woman ” 

There was a crash and shouts in the passageway — 
more than shouts ; yells and a wild tumbling and clatter 
of blows. 

“What are those fools doing?” he demanded. 

Dula reached over and struck my arm, then motion- 
ed for me to get Williams to go on, finish what he had 
started to say of her. 

My nerves were jangled. What could be going on 
out there? I had to see. I opened the door. 

The rough breathing of men was the most vivid thing 
I noticed at first. It was as if a dozen wheezy bellows 
were puffing. 

And Shaylor was cursing, his back to the bulkhead, 


192 


WILD BLOOD 


men to the right and left of him, battered men, bluffed 
men. Hawkins’s big face was streaming blood; he had 
been whipped. Others of the crew had leaped to help 
him. Shaylor had beaten them. 

Rough, noisy braggart that he was, he had right to 
the name of Red Shaylor. With his fists he had beaten 
them. 

I have heard it told that boasters and bullies will not 
fight. Most of those I have chanced across would fight. 
As a lion beats its sides with its tail, they rouse them- 
selves with their own tongues. But somehow something 
always seems lacking in them. Perhaps it is because 
they drive only with their fist, and have little or nothing 
of that dynamic force of personality, often stronger than 
blows. Just as at that instant a surprising thing hap- 
pened. 

“Now, you ,” Shaylor cried exulting, 

“who’s runnin’ this ship?” 

Williams was out of the bed, on his feet ; he lurched 
to the door; he was unsteady, but his eyes were open. 
An abrupt short gesture with his right hand, and: 

“On deck! Get there!” 

He stood, grim and tense, blood on his mouth, giving 
the impression of crouching without doing so, as if 
ready to leap. The men hesitated awkwardly, then be- 
gan to go up the companion stairs. 

Not till the last man had foot on the stairs did he 
move; then, half-turning, reeled, fumbled blindly with 
hands to face, and fell. Hurricane Williams had fainted. 


CHAPTER IX 


TRADITIONS OUT OF SICILY 

r T , HERE are many things that should be told at once — 

that should be told not in sequence, but simultane- 
ously. For instance, there was another fight on deck 
about two minutes after the men had gone up and found 
the ship aback in the wind, rolling and drifting like a 
crewless craft. 

Shaylor jerked out a belay ing-pin and started to give 
orders. Hawkins jerked out another and told him to go 
to the devil. I had the story from Raulson. 

Hawkins was bleeding and battered, but he avowed 
that he was not beaten. He rushed in and was laid un- 
conscious. The men took orders from Shaylor. 

For another thing, Davenant sidled up to me as I 
came out of Williams’s room, his white teeth showing in 
a hateful smile, and whispered low. 

“Luck has been with us, eh?” 

Some time had passed in that cabin before Davenant 
met me, and among other things during that time I had 
unlocked the chest — of course, to make sure the rifle- 
plungers were safe — and emptied a bottle of gin down 
my own throat, all except a sip that Dula had taken 
from a cup that I offered her. She had tried in a not un- 
skilful way to wipe and dress the wound. The girl was 
tired and worn, and more pale than I had seen her. And 
more resolute. 


193 


194 


WILD BLOOD 


I probably smiled at him, for I was past caring what 
he thought or did. Luck? Luck? I played with the 
word. Indeed, for sooner or later we’d drift or be blown 
to some island where there were natives; and wherever 
there were natives Williams was known; and when they 
found him dead, or half-dead: 

“How would you like to see your head drying on the 
rafters of a chief’s hut !” 

I left him. 

Davenant probably suspected that I was drunk, but 
he had something to brood over anyway. He should 
have known enough of human nature to be aware that 
no man is to be trusted ; so he really had no reason to be 
surprised at me when he came whispering about “luck” 
through those shining teeth. 

I found Hawkins, a great red gash on his head as if 
he had been half-scalped, on the forecastle-head. His 
face was scarcely recognizable. 

He began by cursing me for a coward, a hanger-back 
and named all the other men for the same. By his side 
he had an ax. 

Shaylor could shout his own throat out. He wouldn’t 
budge. Let Shaylor come forward for him and there 
would be another fight. 

I mentioned significantly that somebody had stolen 
my gun. Hawkins vowed he did not care how many 
guns Shaylor might have stolen. 

He looked longingly at the big revolver of Williams’s 
that I had put on. He damned me for not using it — 
then suddenly he cursed Williams for pulling the fellow 
out of the sea. Let him have. the gun; he would go aft 
then and there — 


WILD BLOOD 


x 95 


I had a bottle behind my back. We drank it. And 
talked. 

No — Shaylor would not get to the bottles in the 
chest. Dula Davenant was there. She was keeping vigil 
— had he ever seen such a woman? 

No, of course not. Worse than any ever seen. Of 
course. 

Peculiar, strange, fierce, dangerous. But then all 
women were dangerous. There was no distinction. Aye, 
and she hated Shaylor. 

Hawkins said the crew did, every man. 

Except Davenant? 

Maybe not Davenant, but what of it? Wait till night, 
Hawkins went on, and Shaylor would learn something. 
All the men hated him — . If I would bring up another 
bottle he would take his ax and go aft. He had a mind 
to go after another bottle himself. 

I warningly shook my head. 

Dula was keeping vigil with a naked knife on the 
table beside her. There was no knowing who had fired 
into his back. She would trust no one. Me? Yes, but 
no one else. 

She had begged could I — could I possibly imagine 
what Williams was about to say of her — of “that wo- 
man” — when he had been diverted ? I could. But I lied. 
I knew how very much she resembled another woman, 
one whom Williams could not forget. 

It is better to hate than to love. I did not tell her so. 
No doubt she already knew ; and knew, too, how uncon- 
trollable love is, even when consciously futile. 

Hawkins was talking. Pie did not know, he said, 
what had got into him. He was a peaceable man. But 


196 


WILD BLOOD 


the ship, the ocean, the world, wasn't big enough for him 
and Red Shaylor. 

He had had fights — a few. But he never felt that 
way toward any other man, except one. Carp Taylor. 
Taylor's ship, he said, looked as if it had been hit by a 
typhoon before the crew got him, Hawkins, across the 
main-hatch. Afterward he had tried four times to kill 
Taylor. Twice he thought he had succeeded. He hated 
him worse than Shaylor. No, he wouldn’t hit Shaylor 
from a shadow. But give him that gun and he would 
take a shot or two at Shaylor there on the poop just to 
see him jump. 

Shaylor walked back and forth on the poop. That 
was his domain. In full view, Hawkins and I sat and 
drank. The men below in the waist stared first one way 
and then the other, mumbling together, shaking and nod- 
ding heads gravely, depressed, afraid of they scarcely 
knew what. 

In a way, perhaps, they had come to regard Williams 
as one who in spite of his abrupt violence and harshness 
had other qualities than a tigerish strength that evoked 
respect. He filled the ship. There was no hesitancy 
about him; and there was a sense of definite security — 
something definitely dependable — in him. 

One simply could not imagine a mutineer with an ax 
holding his forecastle and keeping men away from the 
jib. They were literally at sea; they felt figuratively so. 

Shaylor called them aft and tried to win them, tried 
to explain. He was, in a way, plausible ; even right. 
Somebody had to be captain. They had to make port. 
They were all pressed men. 

Then too there would be the reward. They would 
share that. 


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197 


The first thing to do was to rush the forecastle-head 
and take care of the two fools up there. Heads twisted 
soberly over shoulders in our direction. 

It may have been they caught a whiff of the liquor ; 
or it may have been that they did not know what they 
wanted ; whether to go to a white man’s port with Shay- 
lor who might break their heads if they refused, or to 
join Hawkins on the forecastle. 

Men are much like domesticated animals. They may 
not like to be herded, but they are much at a loss to know 
what to do without herding. Though, on the other hand, 
there is a perceptible lure in being rebellious. Even in 
rebellion, mutiny, outlawry, they want a herder. 

“What we goin’ do ?” Hawkins asked, tired of trying 
to listen to what Red Shaylor was saying to the men. 
There was very little interest in the question. He did 
not greatly care. The brandy had been strong, and 
enough of it to warm his big body. 

I did not know. Williams wanted to get to Savaii — 
to the village of Lelela. He had friends and stores there. 

No, Williams wouldn’t die. The only way a man like 
that died was suddenly. 

Give him a chance to keep his finger-tips on his soul 
and he would wrest it out of Death’s hands. It had to be 
snatched from his body all at once, by surprise. 

Hawkins showed honest amazement. He thought 
Williams was dead, or the same thing, as good as dead. 
Ho, that made a difference. It was probably the brandy 
that made the difference. 

He had a mind to go run Shaylor off the ship, to 
make him jump into the ocean and drown. Hawkins 
assured me that I was a fine fellow. He loved me. 
Let’s go chase Shaylor. 


198 


WILD BLOOD 


The men were leaving the poop, straggling off. 
Whatever they had decided, they had not done so with 
enthusiasm. Perhaps they had decided nothing. 

“Hey, you cookee,” Hawkins bellowed at Raulson. 
“Bring us some dinner.” 

Only he put an assortment of lurid oaths into the 
order; but somehow they were not offensive even to 
Raulson. There is a subtlety in cursing that evades any 
effort to get it 4own on paper because it belongs entirely 
to the tone and in some very nearly impalpable way to 
the intention behind the tone. 

Shaylor quickly commanded Raulson not to give us 
food until he gave permission. Hawkins bellowed that 
he would shave Raulson’ s ears off if he didn’t send up 
a full kid. Shaylor bellowed back that he would brain 
Raulson if he did. Raikes’s head appeared at the top of 
the forecastle ladder. 

“Get down, you one-eyed shrimp !” Hawkins roared, 
waving his ax, but not going to the trouble of standing. 

Despite his warlike tongue Hawkins was very nearly 
in a merry mood. What was a battered face and aching 
body? All in the day’s hazard. 

Raikes came on. He was with us. He hoped Shaylor 
would die of various foul diseases and be eaten by a 
shark, then get himself toasted on the devil’s tail as long 
as there was a coal left. Raikes did not want to go to 
Sydney. Shaylor did. 

Raikes explained that some of the old heads advised 
standing by Shaylor. What was there in it for them to 
go on with the Sally Martin ? They might all be hanged. 

Then there was the reward, and probably salvage on 
the ship. He denounced them all. He wouldn’t have 
anything to do with such a lot of dogs. 


WILD BLOOD 


199 


Hawkins, a little unsteadily, thickly, praised Raikes. 
Patted his head. 

“ ’Ave a drink, old mate,” and gave him the nearly 
emptied bottle. 

Raikes drained it. Hawkins clamored for his dinner, 
tried to sing a little, roared at Shaylor, dared everybody 
to come up and get him, nearly struck my foot in sink- 
ing the blade of the ax into the deck to show how he 
could split the first adventurous head that came up the 
ladder; and requested Shaylor to put his up first 

Now and then his head would nod a little, and be 
jerked up ; then Hawkins would look quickly about 
him, see all was well, remember his empty belly, or for- 
get the words of some song he would try to get out. 

I did not know what to do. Not even the good magic 
jinnee that dwell in gin and brandy bottles could chase 
away the black melancholic devils that sat nipping at my 
heart. 

I was helpless, felt even more helpless than possibly i 
was. I could not take bearings or set a course. I knew 
no more of laying a course than a grocer’s apprentice. I 
could follow one after a fashion, but I could not take 
bearings. 

Raikes could not either. He admitted it. Said some- 
thing about “dead reckoning,” but I would rather have 
trusted the wind and tide than his calculations. We had 
both lied to Davenant when we told him we knew nauti- 
cal mathematics. 

Shaylor could navigate all right, but he couldn’t find 
his bearings without instruments. And he had no chance 
to get to them. Dula had the door locked. She would 
give up nothing. Davenant himself had asked to get in, 
and been refused. 


200 


WILD BLOOD 


We had talked, Dula and I. The sense of intimacy 
had suddenly become close, but there were still curtains 
between us, or rather before her. Williams slept fever- 
ishly, or he may not have slept at all. He had opened 
his eyes from time to time and looked at us, looked hard, 
with something of a startled expression, at her. He 
coughed — blood. The crude dressings she had put on the 
wounds gave him little comfort. 

Among the things she had said at that time, whisper- 
ing with watchful glances to make sure that even low 
tones were not disturbing, was : 

“He is so unlike the men I have known. I was never 
the least afraid of him.” 

It was such an odd thing to say — for her who seemed 
to me to have no fear at all, to say. I asked the most 
natural question, and gravely she replied: 

“Yes, I was a little afraid of you. No. I am not 
now. Why? I can’t say. You have changed. Haven’t 
you?” 

Had I? I wasnt then drunk enough to tell her that 
— that — that — . But tell her what? How was I to tell 
her anything? Particularly something I had not then 
admitted to myself. 

I asked what she meant to do. 

She meant to stay by the bedside and Watch’ over the 
wounded man. That was her immediate and impersonal 
answer. It was as if she meant for me to understand 
that she would stay by any bed that had a wounded man 
in it. 

“You love him.” 

It was a thought that slipped out aloud. 

Her face flushed — her eyes blazed. The strong little 


WILD BLOOD 


201 


chin went up, and she pressed her lips nervously. As 
usual when I told the truth I was into trouble. 

But it seemed to me that in spite of her determined 
pose she was all aflutter. Deeper waves of red surged 
into her pale cheeks. Her tense, slim hands motioned 
out at me fiercely. She was aroused, but even then she 
whispered. 

Love? She hated the word! She hated every man 
that ever used it. It was a mockery, that word. 

Then with a quick change of manner, almost coax- 
ingly, she asked why I had said such a thing. And wait- 
ed, suspended in a kind of eagerness, as if my answer 
would be important. 

“I am drunk,” I had told her. 

And, snatching up a bottle of brandy, I had gone out 
and found Hawkins on the forecastle. 

I had left him there, half-dozing. Raikes said he 
would play sentinel. I passed the men, edging away to 
avoid them. As I went by they followed me with their 
eyes, said nothing. 

Shaylor and Davenant were sitting on the skylight. I 
heard the word “Dakaru” before they saw me. Shaylor 
got up truculently. Davenant asked me to come there. 

I kept at a distance. My fingers fumbled with the 
handle of a big revolver. Shaylor tried not to appear 
unamiable. But the very curves of his body were 
threatening. 

We had an old grudge anyway; and I did not know 
then that when he had knocked on the door, Dula had 
said she would not open it — not to anybody except “Mr. 
McGuire.” Mr. Red Shaylor would have liked to break 
the neck of Mr. McGuire. 

I shall say for him that he was no good as a hypocrite. 


202 


WILD BLOOD 


Not at all in the same rank with Davenant, who, had he 
never learned that a smile is supposed to inspire confi- 
dence, would have been more convincing. 

They wanted me to bring out what Davenant called 
the “instruments of navigation.” I told them they did not 
need a sextant to find the way to hell. 

They guessed that I had been drinking. Shaylor 
seemed the more interested in the possibility of my having 
left a little something. 

He tried to explain. He was sorry Williams had 
been shot. If he knew who had done it, he would hang 
the fellow astern by the neck. 

I suggested that nobody would stop him from suicide. 
He swore at me, and seemed about to rush. He withheld 
himself, and inquired if I was crazy. 

Davenant asked me to remember certain conversa- 
tions with himself. I had a defective memory, regret- 
tably so. 

It came to nothing, all that talk. 

I backed down the companion, painfully conscious 
that there was no courage in me. Someway I couldn’t 
act with resolution. Too much given to words, I suppose. 

There aren’t many people in the world who know 
what it is to feel themselves cowards. It is always easy 
to delude one’s self. I had always been able to do it 
before; to plead discretion or indifference, or the inten- 
tion of using some subtle, roundabout means of evening 
the score. 

I was gifted in the making of impertinent replies; 
also thought that I was wily in laying plots and traps. 
Every man succeeds in being a hero to himself. At that 
moment I had nothing inside of me but ruins. 


WILD BLOOD 


203 


“Who is it?” Dula asked as I tapped lightly on the 
door. 

There was nothing soft and feminine about her voice, 
nothing tremulous — no fear in it. I told her. The bolt 
slipped back. The door opened an inch, scarcely more, 
as she peered out. And she had a gun in her hand. 

“Mine !” I exclaimed in a breathless gasp. 

A trace of misgiving flickered across her face, and 
was gone. But a shadow, nothing more, remained for a 
moment or two in her manner. She had stolen it from 
me while I was asleep. 

Her explanation was naive; at once convincing and 
humiliating. I had not used it that night when Red 
Shaylor flung me to the deck. She would use it if — 
well, if he ever put his hands on her. 

Probably she had reasoned, if a woman does ever 
reason after she has an idea, that he could not stop a 
bullet as he might grasp her wrist and stop a knife-thrust. 

“Then Davenant shot him!” I cried, excited, point- 
ing to Williams. 

He had lapsed into unconsciousness, and was scarcely 
breathing. 

For an instant she stared at me, then sighed heavily, 
'dropping her arms. Her body relaxed in a kind of hope- 
less depression. She half-fell, wearily, against the door. 

“I might have known. I might have known,” she 
said in a low, tired voice. 

Then, straightening up, her tone growing firmer and 
rapidly merging into fierceness, her bright black eyes 
narrowing and glittering until she was strained, panting 
and furious : 

“I might have known ! He isn’t the first Lord Daven- 
ant has shot in the back. How I hate him and have 


204 


WILD BLOOD 


hated him! His heart is as black as his face, Oh, 
I have done his crimes for him till I — till I — I 

“Do you know why we are going to Dakaru? I am 
going there to kill my own father ; then I’ll use the same 
knife to cut into the heart of Francisco Davenant !” 

I could not help it; I shrank back against the bulk- 
head, horror in my eyes. I knew it was there. I felt it. 
She did not notice. I was half-drunk, yet I was appalled. 

The walled-up passion within her had burst. There 
was no reticence, no shame, no hesitancy. I had known 
she would be terrible in anger, but it had been impossible 
to dream of anything like this. 

It was bewildering, frightening; in spite of the utter 
ferocity of her words there was no hysteria in her manner 
or voice. She was not a woman suddenly unbalanced, 
but was speaking from the secret depths within her. 
It is unlikely that she realized what she was saying, 
though she was saying what she had long brooded over, 
bitterly, malignantly; and it may be true that she was 
mad. She did not seem so, however much her words 
may. 

Hers was a vengeance nurtured from early girlhood. 
Her Sicilian family was noble and barbaric. It had a 
tradition from old time of never forgetting an injury and 
of never going into a court for its revenge. 

She was proud of that. She scorned the English who 
gave their wrongs and stained honors to be washed out 
by lawyers. Her two immediate male ancestors had been 
English, but she felt that none of their blood was in her. 

That amazing young Sicilian countess who, shortly 
after the Napoleonic wars, came into England the bride 
of a marquis’s son had handed down her traditions and 
her blood. With her own slim hand and the knife that 


WILD BLOOD 


205 


Dula thrust toward me, she had poniarded a young 
gallant who had foolishly thought she was, except for 
her beauty, much like other women. 

All London was horrified, though the matter was 
hushed and the young gallant, much wiser for his loss 
of blood, was bundled off to the Alps to recover. The 
marquis’s son, pulled on by his shocked family, set about 
a divorce; but his wife, Dula’s amazing grandmother, 
told him : 

“You drag me into your stupid courts, you take your 
name away from my children — and what do you think I 
will do? Shut myself up in a tower room and weep? 
No. No. Before my two brothers can come out of the 
south, each with an oath on his knife, you will be dead.” 

There was no divorce. Not even after the marquis’s 
son returned from his long travels to assume his father’s 
title. The proud, fiery countess retired into the country 
with her children, and they were brought up Sicilians; 
brought up to hate their father, scorn the English forms 
of justice and the mild, easy honor that did not use blood 
to wash out insult and injury. 

In time Dula’s mother met, loved and eloped with a 
handsome young cavalry officer. The brother, Francis 
Davenant, baptised Francisco, went after them. The new 
bride had in her the same blood as her brother, and Cap- 
tain Grahame does not seem to have been timid — though 
Dula gave him not even that meager credit. 

Her mother loved the captain, and would not leave 
him. Love is more than family, more than tradition, 
blood, honor — more even than Sicilian vengeance ! Back 
they went, Lord Davenant, Captain Grahame and his 
bride to face the fiery old countess — then a marchioness. 


206 


WILD BLOOD 


also — who seems to have been as warm-hearted as she 
was terrible. 

Captain Grahame came from a good family ; he 
avowed his love, promised his watchful devotion ; and 
appears to have been not a little impressed. The coun- 
tess settled a sum of money on her daughter and gave 
them a warning along with her blessing. 

A year later Captain Grahame was like all other men ; 
drinking, gambling, embittered. Two years later he was 
out of the army. Dula said thrown out, disgraced. And 
when Dula was five years old, she was taken to her 
aging grandmother’s — her father gone, her mother dead. 
He had run away with an Englishwoman, a cousin, and 
had gone too far to be found. 

The mother — with that same knife that Dula shook 
glitteringly before my alarmed eyes — had stabbed herself 
and died. Perhaps less from shame than through the 
hope that her wronged spirit might better seek out and 
harry the man who had so disgraced her. 

Not in five hundred years, not since her Sicilian 
family remembered its name, had there been a divorced 
or a deserted woman. Some of its daughters had, when 
married to worthy men, been killed by their wronged 
husbands. The old countess had impressed upon Dula 
that that was a death of dignity and justice. 

“A woman,” she had said, “woos death when she 
embraces her husband’s friend, and if she smiles under 
the knife the Mother of God weeps in pity !” 

With the death of her grandmother Dula had come 
directly under the care of Davenant. He was very 
much dreaded and disliked by many people, and there 
was a strong cynical hatred in him for everybody. Yet 
he had a large acquaintance, as a man does who uses up 


WILD BLOOD 


207 


money rapidly ; and he must not have been scrupulous as 
to how he got more. 

“He hesitates at nothing and pushed me into every- 
thing,' ” she said. “Oh, what I endured — and learned!” 

Her enraged confessional did not cover that period at 
all ; except in so far as I understood, by inference, that it 
was one of glittering evilness, with no fear of God and 
no love of anybody. 

“I loathe men !” she hissed, glaring at me, her little 
fists clenched as if she would like to wreak on some 
man the rage she felt toward all. 

She had never been permitted to forget her father. 
As a child Davenant had made her kiss the knife with 
which she was one day to kill Grahame. 

It was known that he had gone into the South Seas. 
But one doesn’t follow a man by the track his ship leaves 
in the water. There was, she said, a Sicilian proverb to 
the effect that if your hate endured the world would 
shrink to bring the breast of your enemy within arm’s 
reach. Davenant, cold, implacable, watched, waited and 
gave her no chance, even if she had used it, to forget. 

It was through watching for all reports out of the 
South Seas that she had heard and learned of Hurricane 
Williams. Oddly enough, what most strongly appealed 
to her at first was the legend that he was a renegade, 
hating the men of his blood; and when some imagina- 
tive writer, with a basis of fact, described how Williams 
was so embittered against women that he would avert his 
face to avoid seeing them, she realized a sudden, sympa- 
thetic kinship. 

Then, too, he seemed such a man ! His exploits, none 
the less glamourous for being recounted over and over 
from mouth to mouth and finally done into articles, 


208 


[WILD BLOOD 


excited her imagination. Like most people who never 
saw him, she pictured him as a massive, giant-like man. 
It was the more amazing to her, and not disappointing, 
to discover that he was not a huge brute, and that his 
face, with features not even winds and sun and blows had 
blurred, was cleanly molded, refined. 

For years Hurricane Williams had been more than a 
name to her. She had not, perhaps, idealized him, for 
she gloated over the stories of his ferocity — mostly false 
—his ruses, scarcely exaggerated, and his daring. 

Her life at that time must have been passed in a kind 
of brilliant wickedness; embittered, restless, heartless, 
yet fluttering through nights of cold, glittering gaiety, 
hating men she lied to lovingly, and despising the wo- 
men she knew. Hers was the blood of the remarkable 
old countess, but hers was not the irreproachable dignity 
of that famous grandmother. 

“1 wouldn’t have known what to do with a rosary,” 
said Dula. “I never prayed except that men told the 
truth when they cried I was ruining their lives !” 

Her fierceness in recital was inexhaustible. She 
gesticulated passionately, and, having so surprisingly be- 
gun her confessional, hesitated at nothing. I was the 
weary one. My body was, but not my ears. They gaped 
in nervous eagerness to catch every word. Again and 
again I did not believe it — that she was talking to me. 
Each time I realized with a faintly palpable shock that 
it was real, that this woman was telling me her bitter, 
tragic, quivering story. 

She had an unaccountable assurance that some day 
she and Hurricane Williams would not be strangers. 
She felt it. She had never felt anything more strongly, 


WILD BLOOD 


209 


not even that some time she would hear where Grahame 
was and find him. 

Only in that one appalling sentence had she said 
“Father.” He was Grahame to her. With a kind of 
ghastly diabolism, educed by Davenant, she was from 
girlhood consecrated to kill him. The naked knife-blade 
had not been kissed in vain. 

At last rumor of him reached Davenant. A solicitor, 
who had disentangled the nearly exhausted properties 
of wife and husband when Grahame fled with a cousin 
for a bride, told Davenant he had been heard from. 

Inquiry, investigation, followed. Reports of enormous 
wealth came back, and a kind of imperial splendor on a 
remote, wealthy island. 

Davenant had got in touch with a sea-captain who 
knew Grahame, who had been to Dakaru, and who g5ve 
him the location of the island. A fellow named Taylor. 

She and Davenant came to Melbourne. They were 
to have met Taylor there. But nothing was knowh of 
him ; nothing could be heard of him. So Davenant made 
such arrangements as he could to reach Dakaru. 

That was her story, the whole of it; except that 
when she had finished, tired, almost exhausted, by such 
protracted intensity, she turned and stooped over the 
unconscious body of Williams, wiping his lips. He was 
alarmingly motionless, and only a low sound of pain — 
sounds that could be wrenched from him only when he 
was unconscious — now and then showed that he was not 
dead. 

She turned about and looked at me, then as if to make 
Her confessional utterly full, said, low-voiced but fiercely : 

“I would rather be under his feet than in the arms 
of any other man that ever lived. You guessed that, but 


210 


WILD BLOOD 


it isn’t love — it is real. I don’t know what it is and I 
don’t care as long as it isn’t called that miserable, foolish 
thing, love ! Now be like all other men I have known and 
carry what I have said to Francisco Davenant — I’ll kill 
you too!” 


CHAPTER X 


A DRUNKEN NIGHT AND AT DAWN A FIGHT 

TF ONE did not have to eat or think this would not be 
* such a bad world. I have had to do a little of both at 
times. Good, or even bad, gin will take the place of food 
if one can get roundly, soundly drunk. But each man 
has his failing, his weakness, and on that day mine was 
an invincible sobriety. My knees may have been a little 
disjointed, my fingers fumbling, my toes numb and 
sleepy ; but that did me no good. 

It was not only that I had listened hour on hour to 
Dula Davenant, and learned some of the things that 
God alone knew and that I sat another hour on hour 
looking at her, wondering why she did not appear as 
wicked, as evil, as terrible, as she was. She might take 
on that appearance if I shared my secrets with her. 

I never would. I would have told her I loved her 
before I would have admitted that it was due to me that 
Williams was wounded. 

Davenant had shot him because by stupid design I 
had pretended to have no loyalty to Williams, and also 
pretended to know how to navigate. Davenant had taken 
the shortest means of getting him out of the way. I 
knew it was Davenant because there had been but three 
revolvers on the ship. I had one. Williams had another. 
Davenant had pushed back his coat and shown me the 
third one time in talking of Grahame of Dakaru. 

211 


212 


WILD BLOOD 


I had supposed Shaylor had taken my gun and hid 
or flung it overboard to evade detection. Brains are 
fine, fine things for those who know how to use them. 
I had been no better than an idiot. 

But that did not keep me from getting hungry along 
late in the afternoon of that longest of earth’s days. We 
could not stay penned up in that narrow cabin — at least 
I couldn’t — without something to eat. 

I remembered Hawkins’s clamorous cries for food, 
and I ventured forth. I should do some clamoring too. 
I almost had the hope that Shaylor would get in my way. 

After listening two hours to Dula, I was — or for a 
time felt that I was — a changed man. I rather thought 
that I hoped Davenant would shoot at me ; and, of course, 
miss. That would make me justly angry, and I would 
shoot, too; and, of course, not miss. Perhaps he never 
shot except from the rear. 

That thought made me a little uneasy. I had only 
two eyes, but I made an effort to look in all directions. 
I became very stealthy, or tried to become velvet-footed 
as a watchful cat. But it was probably more as if I was 
■walking on club-feet. 

I poked my head out of the companion and warily as 
a turtle looked about. The poop was deserted. Even 
the wheel was lashed. We were sailing almost straight 
for the setting sun. That was wrong. 

Williams had said go to Savaii. Shaylor probably 
thought that he could bump into the mainland. He and 
Davenant were going back to get rid of Williams, get 
refitted and go to Dakaru. Of course, I guessed, that 
was what they were up to. 

Let ’em pray for cloudless days and night, then. I 
smashed the binnacle with the butt of my revolver and 


^WILD BLOOD 


213 


broke off the compass needle. For once in my life I 
acted without thinking. 

Again, impulsively, I threw off the lashing. The 
ship was close-hauled, and would come around into the 
wind in a minute. We might not get to Savaii, but at 
least we would stop going in the wrong direction. 

So it was that before I realized what I was doing I 
had, so to speak, declared war. It is always easy to 
declare war. Of course it had been foolish to destroy 
the binnacle if I was about to declare war ; but I did not 
realize then that it was war. That had been the act of 
declaration. 

I probably intended to smash it and run. But having 
smashed it I threw off the lashing. By that time I 
didn’t feel like running. So it is that little things lead 
to greater. I was getting warmed up nicely. 

The men were clustered forward in the waist. 
Shaylor was there, and Davenant. Shaylor turned with 
a yell and came bounding. I didn’t know what he had 
been doing. I supposed urging the men to rush Hawkins 
on the forecastle, though I hadn’t then noticed him, or 
rather noticed missing him. 

Shaylor came, cursing. Others followed him, but 
they did not curse. He stopped half-way up the star- 
board ladder. I asked him to stop. In fact the bullet 
whizzed rather close to his head and made everybody 
duck. 

I had had no intention of shooting. The crazy ship 
had come aback and was rolling drunkenly; so that may 
have made him think that I was half — or more — drunk, 
and didn’t know what I was doing. Well, I really didn’t. 

He backed down that ladder in a hurry. Having got 
into such a muddle, I served notice to all the world that 


214 


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I would shoot the first man that tried to come up either 
that or the port ladder. 

Shaylor wanted to argue, but he used too many swear- 
words. They offended me. He was not fit to talk with 
a gentleman. I do not remember distinctly, but I would 
guess that I told him that, too. 

Davenant tried to talk to me, but all I could wonder 
about was whether or not he would try to use his gun. 
Quite frankly, but perhaps with a little unsteadiness of 
tongue, I said I thought I would have to shoot him. 

Perhaps I should have shot him, then and there. 
But I didn’t. I preferred to talk about it. 

One of my curses, and I have been subjected to many, 
is my weakness for talking. Williams was a silent man. 
His energy went to his fists. 

However, Davenant did not know whether or not I 
would shoot. A man that wabbles from ankles to wrists 
is likely to do anything. But the rolling of that beastly 
schooner, with her sails aback, really did have something 
to do with my wabbling. 

Davenant had come close to talk to me. Perhaps he 
blanched under his black whiskers. I distinctly had the 
wish to cut them off and see. 

He asked if I would shoot an unarmed man. I told 
him those were the safest kind to shoot. I pointed the 
gun at him. It unsteadily swerved and veered around 
until I had about every other man there ducking and 
sidestepping anxiously, but it really was Davenant I was 
aiming at. 

He knew it, too. In fact, he obeyed my instructions 
not to move. He was right at the foot of the ladder, and 
there was probably more danger of my falling down on 
top of him than of hitting if I shot. 


WILD BLOOD 


215 


But he was impressed, anyway. He insisted that he 
was unarmed. I told him to turn around and lift his 
coat tails. He did. 

“Higher. Way up,” I said, peering down. 

Then I realized that my eyes were a little blurred, 
that things I looked at intently would not be still and had 
a tendency to duplicate themselves — to show two where 
there should have been but one. My eyes got that way 
once in a while, which was annoying. 

However, if I had seen two gun-butts in his pocket 
I would have shot. But I couldn’t see any. Which was 
in a way disappointing as well as reassuring. I rather 
wanted to shoot him. 

Anyway, I shot at the deck. Each fellow must have 
thought I was shooting at him. They all jumped and 
ducked and tried to dodge out of sight. 

It was very funny. I enjoyed it so much that I shot 
again. Davenant was the only one who stood still. 
Shaylor had darted in under the ladder. I stooped over, 
poked the gun between the steps and made him come 
out. 

Then I shouted for Hawkins. No answer. I yelled 
loudly, and paused. No answer. 

I yelled for Raikes. His little furtive form emerged 
cautiously from behind the mainmast. 

“Do you want me t’ come up ’ere?” he called. 

I said I most certainly did ; and where was 
Hawkins ? 

“I’ll tell you ’bout it — all ’bout it,” he said, running 
to the ladder. 

“Look hout f’r ’im, McGuire,” a voice ’way forward 
yelled. “ ’E betr’yed ’Awkins !” 

Oh-ho-ho! I understood in a flash. Raikes could 


WILD BLOOD 


fci6 

go neither up nor down, but half-way on the ladder He 
cringed. I leaned forward to jab the gun-muzzle into his 
rib, but nearly fell, so I contented myself with weaving it 
about in the general direction of his stomach. 

“Let me explain !” he wailed. 

I told him that in two minutes he would be telling his 
story to the devil, so he might as well rehearse. He 
began to talk, but I shut him up to ask if he could pray, 
and insisted upon hearing him. He started to pray, but 
it didn’t suit me. He was too sincere. 

“So you killed Hawkins !” I cried at him. 

He protested wildly that he had not. He had saved 
Hawkins. Hawkins was not dead. He was down in the 
forecastle. 

Shaylor would have waited till Hawkins fell asleep 
and pounced him. Raikes removed the ax so there 
wouldn’t be any bloody work done, and no reason for 
killing Hawkins. So help him God, he was telling the 
truth ! 

“Dyrty little ly-ar!” yelled the cockney voice from 
up forward. 

Raikes went on: When Hawkins slept and the ax 
was out of reach, Shaylor and three men had gone up and 
overpowered him. They got him down, and a fight set in 
that had very nearly jarred the timbers loose. 

They tried to tie him up, but Hawkins had broken 
away, plunged into the forecastle, shut the door, ripped a 
planking from a bunk and was there daring anybody to 
come and get him. He had been threatening to set the 
ship on fire if food wasn’t passed to him, but nobody 
dared take it. Raikes said that Shaylor had promised not 
to kill Hawkins if he, Raikes, would get the ax away 
from him. 


WILD BLOOD 


217 


I looked down to ask Shaylor if that was true. He 
was gone. But Davenant remained by the rail. It was 
growing a little dusky, and the darkness was sifting down 
over the ship like a faint cloud of fine dust. Davenant 
denied knowing anything about the matter. 

Perhaps Raikes had not lied. He swore by all the 
oaths I submitted to him that he had not. I made him 
swear by everything from his grandmother's grave to 
the Bible, of which he knew nothing, that he had told the 
truth. 

I shouted for somebody to let Hawkins out. But it 
was not a question of letting him out. He wouldn’t let 
anybody in. Raulson, who was more or less of a friend 
anyway, ventured to offer Hawkins some food to get 
him to open the door a bit. 

Shaylor had lapsed inconspicuously into silence and 
remained out of sight. Probably he sensed, thick-skinned 
though he was, the growing dislike of the crew for him 
and did not dare try to make trouble then, for there was 
no concealing the sentiment of the men. 

More or less protected by the shadows of the coming 
night, some of them began to say jeering things, and 
mock the “Red” part of his name. The victor always has 
applause. The beaten man is jeered by those that quaked 
an hour before. 

Then came out of the darkness forward: 

“Ahoy, Red-Top!” 

That big, roaring, hearty voice filled the air. 

“Come on aft, Ben. I’m in control o’ the ship. An’ 
got a dozen bottles waiting to have their necks broke !” 

But at that moment I nearly broke my own neck, and 
also nearly jumped over the side. A gun was fired almost 
directly behind me, and simultaneously a heavy form 


2l8 


WILD BLOOD 


either fell or leaped down the port ladder. Hawkins 
roared to know what was all that shooting row. 

I had some moments of suspended animation right 
then and there. My heart stopped beating, my breath 
stopped, my wabbly body stiffened in cold fright. I 
know only too poignantly that I am not made out of the 
stuff of heroes; but had there been any heroes in my 
place they would have been scared too. 

It was fortunate that I was not sober. I never would 
have recovered. As it was, it took hours of steady drink- 
ing to quiet my nerves. 

Dula had heard the shots I had previously fired. She 
had come out anxiously, and paused, listening, out of 
sight, at the companion entrance. She had remained 
there for some minutes, with rising respect for what 
she mistook to be my bravery and daring. 

As I talked with Raikes, I had ignored the port ladder. 
In the dusk, Shaylor had tried to slip up so as to sneak 
across the deck and get at me from behind. Dula had 
seen, recognized him, shot — and missed. But in one 
bound Shaylor had leaped to the deck below. 

I have no zest in telling what happened that night. 
At dawn, for one of the few times in my ragged life, I 
was ashamed. For the only time in my life I vowed not 
to take another drink — and kept the vow for a little 
while. 

Vows and pledges are foolish things. Some people 
might as well sign a pledge not to jump for the moon as 
not to reach for a bottle. I could have sworn faithfully 
to leave the moon alone. But some might as well sign a 
pledge not to take a breath as to turn their mouths aside 
when the stinging, thrilling, fiery, deifying, glass lips 


WILD BLOOD 


219 


are offered them. And what to me is mere breath beside 
the siren kiss of hot liquor? 

Hawkins came aft. Harmodius and Aristogiton — . 
whoever those fellows were — never exchanged such 
greetings on the gallows as we exchanged on the poop. 
He waddled up the ladder, waving his plank like a 
broadsword and bestowing his defiance upon all the 
world, sun, moon, stars — and Shaylor. 

I welcomed him with arms wide-spread. He looked 
me over carefully, appraisingly, and by the interposed 
plank held me at a distance until he had inquired as to 
what was left to quench his thirst. Then I became a 
dear friend and was nearly smothered. 

He reminded me that certain tinned stuff was stowed 
in the pantry aft — to keep it from being looted. I fished 
the key from Williams’s pocket. 

Williams lay very still. His breathing had become 
stertorous. He had, Dula said, opened his eyes frequently 
— also asked for water. He was matter-of-fact about it. 
Once he had started to make some kind of remark, such 
as — she thought — “Why are you here?” but he had 
stopped, and closed his eyes. 

She could not tell whether he slept or not. He bled 
much. She watched to wipe the blood away from his 
mouth. 

Hawkins and I held high revel. We placed a lantern 
at the head of each ladder so nobody could slip up on us. 
He gave up his plank for Davenant’s revolver, which 
was found in his room. 

Where the chill, dignified, frigid-eyed Davenant 
spent the night I do not know, and I was not in a mood 
to care. 

Hawkins must need shoot the revolver two or three 


220 


WILD BLOOD 


times to see if it worked, and I, not to be outdone, shot 
into the black water two or three more than he. We ate 
and drank and talked very loud. 

Hawkins tried to coax Shaylor to come up, promising 
him a fair fight. But Shaylor did not break the darkness 
with voice or presence. 

At last we remembered Raikes, and demanded that 
he come forward and be chopped into fish-bait. He 
declined by silence. I offered monetary rewards, thou- 
sand pounds or something like that, for Raikes’s body. 
But no one brought it forward. Hawkins, waving a 
bottle of gin, offered it in exchange for Raikes — to 
whomever should bring him up. 

All the crew must have been watching us from the 
dark waist. Hawkins was undoubtedly amusing, and I 
tried to be. 

Anyway, presently we heard a squawk, unmistakably 
from Raikes, and frantic cries for mercy. A moment 
later he was being half-carried, half-thrust up the ladder 
by Cockney George and Raulson. They wanted the gin ; 
but what they really wanted was to see Raikes tormented. 

The schooner, like a derelict, rode the seaway, with 
the wind slapping her sails every which way, while the 
rudder played back and forth at any chance surge of a 
wave. A mad night on a crazy ship, it was; and 
Hawkins, reaching down with one powerful arm, literally 
lifted Raikes by the neck and planted him on the deck, 
where his legs gave way and he crumpled abjectly. 

Very solemnly, and I believe at first more or less 
sincerely, we debated whether to cut off his ears or his 
toes first. Probably if Raikes had been a man of normal 
size Hawkins would have mashed his head with one 
fist-blow. 


WILD BLOOD 


221 


I had Raikes crawling around all over the deck on his 
knees, praying for his life. I don’t tell that in pride or 
for humor; but because it happened. I have a vague 
remembrance that some stinging, hard, angry woman’s 
voice said : 

“You are a fine pair of beasts !” 

But that may have been the apocryphal remark of a 
shamed conscience. Probably not, though. 

Raikes never ceased protesting that he had saved 
Hawkins; and Shaylor declined to answer from the 
shadows when I called upon him to knoW if it were true. 
We did not believe Raikes, of course. 

Hawkins brought the brutal sport to an end some- 
where around midnight with the remark : 

“Aw, he can’t help bein’ a skunk” — calling it 
“sk-nunk.” 

“Now? the Lord’s aw-right,” Hawkins went on with 
a serious air — he was serious, too — and with certain im- 
pressive, but restrained, though rather vague, gestures. 

“The Lord knowed what He was doin’ when He 
made sk-nunks, same as when He made me an’ you, Red- 
Top. In His immish. 

“I’m goin’ lick shat Shaylor — I’m goin’ lick shat 
Shaylor-sailor. I’m goin’ beat ’im zo black an’ blue he 
can’t fin’ ’imself in z-dark. Here, Raikes, old sk-nunk, 

z-down your troubles, an’ git ’o off her. I’m goin’ 

lick shat Shaylor in mornin’.” 

With that Hawkins gave Raikes the bottle from which 
he had been drinking, and the poor little quaking rat 
drank as if his throat had become a huge siphon; then 
he tumbled down the ladder and into the darkness. 

Just when I fell asleep I can not, of course, remem- 


222 


WILD BLOOD 


her. Hawkins slept by my side, but it was not his 
prodigious snoring that awakened me. 

The sun came blindingly up into my face, and I felt 
as if my head had been split during the night. The two 
lanterns still glowed with sentinel loyalty at the ladders’ 
top, though it was only the flame one saw and not the 
light. 

But Dula was slowly, wearily pacing the deck. She 
was tired. She was exhausted. She was haggard and 
worn. She had kept the watch on the deck while we two 
drunken beasts snored like overfed hogs. I suppose her 
little slippered feet had kicked us in vain, and that neither 
scratchings nor scoldings had aroused symptoms of life. 
I prodded an elbow' into Hawkins’s ribs — again and 
again. He shifted himself from stomach to side, but I 
prodded his back; and at last he raised his head, side- 
wise, unsteadily, and by very apparent effort succeeded 
in getting one eye partly opened. 

She wore her cape, but an arm was outside of it, and 
— significant of her vigil — she held the gun. She saw us, 
saw that we were awake at last, and for some moments 
stood looking at us with an expression that left nothing 
contemptuous to be said. Then she turned and glanced 
forward, where men were already astir, perhaps had been 
astir through the night, watching, waiting, sustained with 
a certain morbid curiosity not to miss anything, no matter 
what. 

For a second or two her eyes looked out across the 
water. Nothing but water; not a speck, not an object 
but water. It was as barren and bleak as if God had 
pardoned all the doomed of earth and overlooked us ; or 
perhaps could not forgive such drunken stupors, such 
tragic secrets, such evil purposes, such lives of abound- 


WILD BLOOD 


223 


ing sin as the Sally Martin , like a dead ship, sheltered 
amid her timbers. Then Dula looked at us and said 
wearily, blastingly : 

“Mr. Williams could not rest through the night. He 
was worried over what might have happened to his — 
his — friends !” 

Tired, exhausted, scarcely able to keep her feet, she 
went to the companion and half-stumbled down. 

I looked at Hawkins and Hawkins looked at me. 
There we sat, with bursting heads and hot, aching eyes, 
throats brown and dry as if lined with baked clay. 

Her words had seared us with scorpion scorn ; words 
true, at once true and terribly ironical. After all, the 
men who do the brave and gallant and faithful things 
are not such as found themselves floatsam in the South 
Seas of those days — and we had only lived up to our 
reputations; but not even we had wholly lost the very 
fine virtue of shame. 

But with a jealous effort to hide the fact and in a 
certain brazen attempt to be jocular I said — my head 
waggling unsteadily as I said it; and my eyelids strug- 
gling to shut themselves : 

“Ben, o I' mate, you’re a drunk’n dog.” 

“I know it,” he said from the depth of his dia- 
phragm, huskily sincere. 

Then there was silence. 

Now I have more pleasure in telling what happened. 
But this is far from being a story of regeneration. 
Hawkins and I were many times drunk again, and swore 
never to be sober — swore with, those unfortunate oaths 
it is not possible for mere weak man to keep. 

And in the days that immediately followed I wished 
for something, anything from rum to vitriol, anything at 


224 


WILD BLOOD 


all, to keep me from feeling the unspoken, even polite, 
distaste for me that Dula showed. More than ever, she 
became impenetrable. 

Strange how it could be so when she had bared her 
heart in an hour’s confessional fury ; but it was so. The 
mystery of woman’s art made it so. 

We had to meet many times, say many words, but I 
was a stranger to her. Hawkins had never been anything 
else; nor did he think — or at least he pretended not to 
think — that her face had beauty, her presence a warning, 
flaming, invisible fire. 

So he did not notice the chill impersonality that she 
threw about herself when speaking with him or standing 
near him. There were many good reasons why she 
should have treated him, at least, a little differently, a 
little less disapprovingly. 

Hawkins took command of the ship. He was one 
of those men, often met and always surprising, who had 
hidden forces in them. He did not lose his humor — if 
something I grew to suspect of being largely unconscious 
may be called humor — but he revealed a tyrannical will, 
more directly threatening than Williams’s, but almost 
as insistent. That is, instead of radiating a menace, he 
expressed it in words. 

A sudden sincerity, mental, physical — perhaps spirit- 
ual — descended on him. He never lacked courage, but 
he seemed to acquire, as if bestowed gift-like, that mar- 
velous “something” that often comes to apparently com- 
monplace men when they assume responsibilities. 

He took charge of the ship. Williams had been 
succeeded by Shaylor ; for a drunken hour I had invested 
myself with the skippership; then Hawkins, without at 


WILD BLOOD 


225 


all claiming the honor, assumed it. He gave orders from 
the poop, and no man stirred, though all heard him. 

Davenant, immaculate despite a night far from his 
silken bedding and scented bottles — I had inspected his 
room when looking for the gun — nevertheless maintained 
his groomed dignity, and stood enigmatically alone, 
watching, listening, unmoving. The crew sat and stood 
listless, stirless. Shaylor sat on the rail, his face turned 
aft ; and he, motionless. 

Hawkins stared down at them. I expected to hear 
him bluster, perhaps to draw the gun. He did draw the 
gun — and fling it to the deck. Then slowly, decisively, 
unhurriedly — he was awkward on the ladder anyway — 
he went down. 

With blinking eyes and trembling breast I watched. 
Whether to think he had lost his sanity or to believe he, 
like some of the old-time wandering heroes, had sud- 
denly discarded his wastrel rags and disclosed his real 
personality, was something that rather troubled my 
befuddled state of mind. 

He walked directly for Shaylor. The crew saw what 
he was doing and edged over to that side. They came 
slowly, carefully, not attracting attention, and seemingly 
indifferent as to what happened — so long as they could 
be spectators. 

Shaylor slipped off the rail and waited. Hawkins 
stopped within three feet of him and repeated the order. 
Shaylor struck, and the blow hit. 

Hawkins had none of the evasive ability that saves a 
fighter from the driving knuckles. He was immense, 
awkward, stubborn and strong. 

He had gone down into the waist looking for a fight, 
and he found it. He had gone down with his face bruised 


226 


WILD BLOOD 


and battered and scabbed from yesterday’s fights with 
Shaylor ; but Hawkins himself Was a different man from 
that on the day before. 

Shaylor beat and beat upon Hawkins’s body, and 
dodged effectively. He might as well have been beating 
at a wave. 

Hawkins pressed on. He struck and sometimes he 
did not miss. An amazing coolness seemed to possess 
him, as if all this battering was to be expected and really 
did not amount to anything after all. Not every blow 
reached him, for though he could not duck or dodge his 
thick, upraised arms were like interposed beams. 

Shaylor hit him in the belly, and his heavy gasping 
could have been heard a hundred yards away. For a 
time he guarded his belly and let his face stand the shock 
of Shaylor’s fists. 

Hawkins was too long-suffering not to know what 
he was about. He had been beaten twice in a stand-up at 
fisticuffs, and realized that as a boxer he was nowhere 
Shaylor’s equal. 

But he pressed on, moving this way and that, on, on, 
with Shaylor against the rail and closed in. Shaylor was 
a powerful man, but a powerful man under a mountain 
is somewhat enfeebled. From that moment it became a 
fight of gouge and claw and twist and squeeze, knees, 
teeth, finger-nails, elbows were used — even gasping 
breath, mouth to mouth, was used in clipped, hurried 
curses. 

Whether he planned and watched for the chance or 
luck gave it to him I do not know, but Hawkins got his 
arm about Shaylor’s neck — clamped it into the elbow; 
then with slow, weary, almost monotonous blows of 


WILD BLOOD 227 

his free arm, struck the man's face again and again and 
again and again. 

The only variation was when Shaylor protectively 
tried to put up his arms. Hawkins then struck in the 
stomach. But it was the face he sought to smite, and he 
did — blow on blow. He still got them in return, for 
though Shaylor sobbed, actually sobbed, “Oh, for God’s 
sake !” yet he lashed out frantically. 

There was no mercy on the ships of those seas. 
Nobody had the right to ask it. It was an impertinence 
— as if the victor should respect the feelings of the 
beaten ! 

At last Shaylor, exhausted, whipped to his very back- 
bone, refused to struggle or strike. He covered his face 
as well as he could, writhed about, sobbed inarticulately, 
but was too beaten to fight — even so much as a rat will 
fight though crunched between the jaws of a terrier. 

“I knowed you’d funk out !” Hawkins gasped as he 
let the frightfully beaten man go. 

Hawkins himself was marked as bloodily ; but victory 
is an amazing tonic. Shaylor held staggeringly on to the 
rail. It was probably the only time in his life, since boy- 
hood anyway, that he had been battered like that; and 
he was the sort of man who quit — or wanted to quit — 
when really whipped. 

It was putting foot on the vanquished man’s neck to 
say that he funked it. That was too strong and raw a 
word. Simply because he did not have the stuff ’way 
down deep inside of him that would not let him quit, 
no matter how badly punished, was no reason for calling 
him a coward. 

But Hawkins had to have some revenge. He was 
entitled to something especial, since outward appear- 


228 


WILD BLOOD 


ance scarcely distinguished the champion. So he said 
that. After all he had the supreme right to say it. 

Hawkins gasped until he got his breath back. He 
stood dripping blood and panting, but no — he wouldn’t 
touch the rail to support himself. Not much! 

Again Hawkins repeated his order. The men jumped 
forward smartly. Hawkins was no longer a ponderous 
clown. Shaylor, too much a seaman to question the law 
of the deck, obeyed. 

That was a very miserable day for me. I felt as if 
I had been beached; or, worse, cast out by friends. I 
could still see them and hear their voices, but they were 
changed. 

That is, Dula and Hawkins were changed. Except- 
ing Raulson, I had not been friendly with the others. 
They had always rather veered off from me. But 
though Hawkins surprised them strangely, I am sure 
they liked him. Having won his right to the poop, they 
respected it. 

“I don’t know where Savaii is,” said Hawkins, “but 
that’s where we’re goin’.” 

After much bungling we started off — not knowing 
where we were, and scarcely more than the general 
direction we were going. 

Dula said that Williams wanted to see me. I went 
down, and was alone with him. 

He lay very quietly, his eyes open, glaring at me. I 
must have been a disgraceful-looking object. Besides, I 
felt guilty. 

Speaking low, but not weakly — not at all! — he said 
that he was not even dangerously hurt. He believed the 
bullet had pierced the lung ? but passed through, not 
lodged therq. 


WILD BLOOD 


229 


It made him dizzy, much as one has vertigo from 
holding the breath, when he stood or sat up. There was 
nothing better to do than lie still. It was exasperating 
to have to do that, but it could not be helped. 

He had unaccountably slept — fainting was not to be 
admitted — and felt rested. He mentioned in a kind of 
an aside that it was the first time in ten years he had 
slept a half dozen hours at a stretch. 

He told me all that in a third less words than I have 
taken. It was the only time I had ever heard him explain 
anything. He was obviously holding himself in. He 
was as much as ever in a mood for temper, and toward 
me. 

Did I, or did anybody else, think that he was helpless ? 
I had been frantically eager to get drunk — with the least 
possible delay. He had heard what went on last night. 

His rough, knotted hands crumped the linen sheet in 
a tight grasp. He probably wished he had his fingers 
at my neck, but instead he throttled the clean sheeting 
that Dula brought from Davenant’s room. 

The course was to be laid for the island of Savaii. 
Did I understand? I did. Tell Shaylor so. 

“Shaylor ! Then he doesn’t know,” I said to myself. 

Williams did not know. He w&s in a much more 
serious condition than he realized. I learned that he 
had tried to get up twice and fell back gasping, dizzy 
and choking with blood. 

Dula had told him everything was all right ; that I 
and Hawkins were drunk but that we were being let 
alone. He had thought that she had gone to her room 
and to bed when she had been holding the deck for 
two drunken louts. 

Hawkins and I talked things over. There was 


230 


WILD BLOOD 


another compass in Williams’s chest and some books on 
mathematics. Hawkins shook his head, saying he once 
had known a part of the multiplication table. 

There was only one thing to do. He did it. I 
brought up the instruments and compass, and Hawkins 
brought Shaylor aft. 

After some parleying, Shaylor agreed to make the 
best of a bad bargain and head for Savaii. Possibly he 
thought his position as navigator would give him a 
chance to get control of the ship again. And possibly he 
thought Hawkins was in earnest when he said that if 
Savaii wasn’t raised there would be something happen, 
unpleasant. 

Davenant was more of a problem. He had been 
restored to his stateroom. Imperturbably he went about 
his business of watchful, silent brooding. He made me 
nervous by the way he stared in my direction, but he said 
nothing — not a word. 

Sometimes I fancied he smiled, that white, white 
smile of the even teeth. But I could never be sure. 

Obviously Dula could not spend all of her time with 
Williams. She did spend most of it with him. And she, 
being afraid of Davenant — for Williams’s sake, not her 
own — asked me to be with him when she was not. 

“Does he suspect ?” I had questioned, perhaps a little 
hopeful to get back to our basis of confidence. 

“Oh,” she said quietly, almost indifferently, “I told 
him it was Francisco.” 

This woman was interminably filled with surprises. 
Maybe I did not jump at that, but I was startled. I asked 
what Williams had said. 

“He said — ” She paused, and, showing a little 
animation, digressed to ask if Williams — she called him 


WILD BLOOD 


231 


“Mr.” Williams — ever showed surprise or emotion? 
She seemed to have at once some regret and much 
admiration for that strange repression in his character. 
Without staying for my answer, she went on : 

“He lay there watching me for the longest time, then 
said: 

“ ‘Davenant, was it ? Davenant. Who is he ?’ 

“And I told him.” 

“Told him!” 

“Yes.” 

“Grahame — and all !” I cried. 

It may have been fancy pn my part; but I thought 
she showed a flushed trace of confusion. Perhaps she 
was fretted to remember how she had made me a confi- 
dant, and would have given much to have reclaimed her 
words. Anyway she shook her head and said coolly : 

“Certainly not.” 

“And Williams — what did he say?” 

I was right on the verge of quivering with excite- 
ment. For one thing, my nerves were frazzled. 

“Why,” she replied with a little wonder, “why, he 
didn’t say anything more.” 

I do not believe that Dula and Williams talked much, 
at least not at first. But she read to him, and it is easy 
to slip from reading to talking. I haven’t a doubt but 
that Williams did his best to wish that she would leave 
him alone ; perhaps he really did wish it. 

Strange, incomprehensible, it was how this woman of 
fiery blood and even murderous heart took’ on a' certain 
pride in humbleness around him. She was quick to 
anticipate his wishes, or what would add to his comfort. 

As near as I could tell, her attitude was one of cheery 
quietness. There was no visible intrusion of her love. 


232 


WILD BLOOD 


She might have been of a religious sisterhood and nursing 
him for the greater glory of Christ — with something of 
the tenderness that befits those who do good works in 
His name. 

After all, tenderness in one woman is pretty much 
like tenderness in another, whether it be brought out by 
love of man or love of God ; and I suppose that the chief 
difference between murderess and saint is that the saint 
did not happen to have a knife in her hand when she 
first learned how treacherous men could be. 

We arranged it as best we could so that it would not 
appear to* Williams that he was being guarded. He would 
probably have turned us both out and thrown the door 
wide open. 

She had a stubborn little way at night of locking the 
door without his noticing it, and then sleeping in a chair. 
She said that he might want something. She locked the 
door so that she might sleep securely. 

She was afraid of Davenant. Not for herself, but 
she evidently feared, as I did, that he would do whatever 
he could to prevent Williams's recovery. There was 
reason to suspect that Williams would make it very 
uncomfortable for Davenant. 

Once Williams said to me, his eyes having followed 
Dula through the door : 

“What do you think of her ?” 

I waved a hand in an impotent gesture, vaguely 
enigmatic. I had nothing to say. But he waited an 
answer. He ignored evasions. Nothing but answers 
appeased his questions. 

I stumbled for ideas. Words, words, words — I could 
pour those out by the mouthful. His eyes remained on 
me. He had not asked an idle question. I had a sense 


WILD BLOOD 


233 


of confusion, with a struggling impulse to tell the truth 
working to get itself into words. 

There was something almost unacknowledgably bit- 
ter for me in the truth. I wouldn’t have acknowledged 
the bitterness — no, not even under his fists. Not even 
under what was more commanding than his fists, his 
eyes. 

But the truth — that flung itself out. I was not aware 
of intention to say what I did. I simply said it : 

“She loves you.” 

His face, somewhat thinned, did not change expres- 
sion. A moment of silence, then with chill brutality he 
said: 

“Yes. I know.” 

A pause. 

“I wish you’d keep her out of here.” 

My mouth, though silent, must have shown by its 
gaping just about what I felt. 

“You told me that before. It didn’t matter then. But 
now — McGuire, I won’t trust that woman !” 

So he, too, had felt her charm, and lie resisted it 
determinedly. She had thrust herself into his attention. 
He could not escape her. But one of his resolution could 
by force of will if not of inclination, distrust her. 

“You don’t ” 

I started the question, but he cut it short. 

“Impossible !” 

“But she isn’t ” 

“She is at heart just as treacherous and cruel as any 
other. If she were the angel you think her ” 

Angel ! For a moment I lost what he was saying as 
my thoughts fluttered distractedly around that word. 


234 


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“ — the only way a woman Teels she can show love for 
one man is by being treacherous to another.” 

“That’s because you hate them all,” I said weakly. 

He answered as quietly as I had ever heard him 
speak, but coldly: 

“You can’t hate women. You can only pretend to.” 

“Then you ” 

Again he anticipated my question, one that burst out 
involuntarily. I was disconcerted, and saying things in 
a way that I would never have dreamed of saying them 
to him. 

“No,” he said tensely, but scarcely above a whisper. 
“It is you who love her.” 

I was speechless. 

“Of course,” he went on, but his voice was not 
sarcastic, “from a respectful distance.” 

“I don’t think she is an angel !” I cried confusedly. 

“Then you do know why she is going to Dakaru ?” 

“Do you?” 

“Yes. Raikes told me,” he said. “You too?” 

I nodded. Raikes had told me. Someway I felt I 
was doing right, even protecting Dula a little — though 
why I should protect her is something for wiser men than 
I to explain — by not disclosing that she also had told me 
the same thing. 

“And do you know why I am going to Dakaru ?” he 
asked with something that resembled a smile. 

It wasn’t a smile, of course. But his lips did have a 
queer twist. 

Of course I did not know why he was going. 

He said: 

“For two things. First to replace the schooner I 
stole. Then to apologize.” 


WILD BLOOD 


235 


“Skipper !” 

He affirmed that incredible, utterly preposterous 
statement with a slight nod. 

“You are mad !” I cried. 

He did half-smile. 

“Grahame! He has done everything against you. 
And he butchers natives — you know that,” I added. 

Williams hesitated thoughtfully, then spoke slowly: 

“I've learned about Grahame since then. He is a 
brute, but he is honest. I don’t admire him, but I can’t 
blame him. 

“When he first went to Dakaru he treated the blacks 
kindly. He was new to the South Seas. He took what- 
ever blackbirders brought — and the cannibals killed and 
ate his wife. The mother of that girl we saw.” 

It was as if my body had crumbled and my brain was 
being knocked about like a shuttlecock. I did not know 
what to say. I did not have the faintest idea of saying 
anything; all the less composure because he appeared to 
be expecting my approval ! 

I did not feel approval or disapproval. Only aston- 
ishment. Everybody in the world was mad, stark mad 
— and Hurricane Williams was not implacable. 

“Apologize !” 

He used that soft, civil, easy, scrupulous word, the 
same word men used when they accidentally trod each 
other’s feet on the dance-floor. 

And Grahame — Dula’s dead mother must have had 
something to do with that cannibal feast. Her insatiable 
ghost had ranged the world over. Taken a revolting, 
vicarious revenge. ... It is so easy sometimes to be 
superstitious. 

After all, Williams would do that. A curious reac- 


236 


WILD BLOOD 


tion of the wrongs, injustices, he had endured would 
cause him to make frank restitution, even apology, when 
he had done a severe injustice to some one else. Proba- 
bly it was only by doing so that he kept the courage to be 
merciless at other times. I do not know. 

“But you are taking them there — they will kill him !” 
I stammered at last. 

For the first time I heard Williams laugh. I do not 
care to hear anything of the kind again, though his 
laughter made scarcely a sound. I don’t know what he 
laughed at. Dead men must laugh like that when they 
hear the clods clattering down on their coffins — laugh 
with a kind of sardonic mirthlessness that the people left 
behind should think there is anything worth while in life. 

And perhaps Williams felt joyless amusement that 
anybody should think life or death was anything to care 
greatly about. Or it may have been that he laughed so 
soundlessly because God, or the gods, or whatever it is 
that gives man trouble, always invested whatever he did, 
or tried to do, with some kind of ironic paradox. 


CHAPTER XI 


RED SINS AND WORDS BLACK AS CURSES 
MONTH later I was as near Heaven as I ever ex- 



1 pect to be. And I could drowse through eternity 
very well if left alone on a white-hot beach. 

I had been there some days. For me, it was like 
coming home. All the children in the village knew me. 
To them I wasn’t a papalagi — outlander, foreigner. 

All the maidens envied me my red hair and tried to 
coax from me the secret for bleaching it. Ten years 
before other maidens, now mothers of some of the impu- 
dent imps, had tried to wheedle my secret out ; and taught 
me their liquid tongue in the moonlight, no doubt that 
I might better understand their coaxing. 

Women are alike, always ; the first thing the mother 
of them all did when she awakened in Eden was to rub 
her lips with a red flower’s petal and, snatching cruelly 
the fluttering butterflies, dust the powder from their 
radiant wings against her cheeks. The only place to learn 
a new language is in the moonlight ; that is in the shadows 
of a moonlit night. It was there Adam was trained to 
say, “I love you,” as some years later in another and 
serpentless Eden I, in less than one lesson, learned aloha 
ai — and much else. 

Lelela was a village of five or six hundred souls, and 
some of them “saved.” The same whaler that brought 
me ten years before had brought an elderly priest ; a man 
already worn with years, calm, wise, patient. 


237 


238 


WILD BLOOD 


Father Rinieri had not been a half-day's journey from 
the village since. Except for his robe one would never 
have suspected that he was a missionary. A missionary 
can have no greater praise than that from me. 

Other missionaries had come and gone, all Yankees, 
prayerful and easily horrified. There was always one or 
more at the village. Two were there now. They very 
openly exposed their belief that the priest was an emissary 
of the devil. 

They had even tried to save me from the evil influence 
of the priest after seeing him embrace me on the sand 
when I splashed wet and panting up on the beach. They 
had furtively caught me off to one side in the evening 
and tried to talk about my “soul.” 

Not in the whole ten years had Father Rinieri men- 
tioned my soul, or heaven or hell. They retreated fully 
convinced that I was a vivid illustration of the unregen- 
erate. But I am far ahead of my story. 

After Hawkins had taken the deck the voyage had 
been uneventful. For one thing, Williams began to come 
on deck. He moved very slowly, cautiously. 

It had been strange to see him, always like a tiger 
against a leash, sitting quietly, motionless. That took as 
much sheer will as anything he had ever done. 

He shot the sun himself and made corrections on 
Shaylor’s calculations. They needed them. 

Also he learned how Hawkins happened to be in 
command. He made no comment. Not even when I 
said : 

“You know, Hawkins does hold a master's certifi- 
cate. Won it in a poker game.” 

But he had turned away his eyes. 

Life became very uneventful. Except for Raikes’s 


WILD BLOOD 


239 


continual implorings for me to believe that he had saved 
Hawkins's life instead of betrayed him, I was left 
almost as much alone as if I had been a stranger. 

Raikes had tried to talk to Hawkins, but had been 
roughly told to shut up. He even approached Williams 
with the tale of woe. Williams listened and said, “All 
right,” and nothing more. 

Raikes came to me to find out what “all right” meant. 

“That you’ll be cooked at Savaii,” I had told him. 

“Samoans ain’t cannibals,” he declared. 

“Yes, but at Lelela are good friends of mine. They’ll 
eat a fellow any time to oblige me.” 

To court my sympathies he reported from time to 
time that Shaylor was “showin’ a lot o’ canvas in the 
fo’c’sle,” boasting that he would yet be revenged on Will- 
iams, Hawkins and myself. Raulson, being asked, said 
it was true. 

The men were afraid of Shaylor’s fists, and listened 
respectfully. But they disliked him. 

They were devoted to Hawkins, praised him among 
themselves. They did their best, too, to make life 
unpleasant for Raikes. 

During those days Davenant conspicuously avoided 
Williams. Dula was again on deck most of her time, 
but she ignored me. She usually sat near Williams, but 
they talked very little. 

Two or three times I heard voices at the foot of the 
companion, insistent voices, and presently Dula would 
come up, a little flushed, her eyes angry — running away 
from Davenant. 

Williams had not forgotten his fake log. He wrote 
a little in it and dictated some to me. I finally got 


240 


WILD BLOOD 


enough out of him to understand what he had in mind. 
A clever idea, too. 

He had at first thought the shortage of supplies on 
board would force him to put into some mainland, or 
possibly Fijian, port, where the chances of his being 
recognized as Hurricane Williams were not great. In 
leaving the ship to go ashore he would fall overboard and 
pretend that his papers had been in a tin box under his 
arm, and lost. 

Thereupon he would demand new papers from the 
consul — and if necessary offer the log to support his 
story. He intended to keep the log up, for there was 
still the chance that it might be used. 

Taulemeito, the chief of chiefs at Lelela and vicinity, 
was very much of a heathen. He was a great handsome 
fellow, who disliked missionaries, traders and Germans 
of any description. 

He did not consider Father Rinieri a missionary. 
“Missionary” in his mind was associated with arrogant 
meddlesomeness and interminable shouting about a lake 
of boiling fire, bigger than the ocean. 

And Taulemeito, who had a lot of common sense, 
knew that anybody who talked like that was a liar. There 
could be no such lake. 

He bitterly regretted the persistent encroachment of 
whites. And his village was much more free from them 
than any other large village of the Samoan group. 

But he liked Williams, who was honest and generous 
and did not meddle. Their friendship was many years 
old. The more the whites denounced Williams the better 
Taulemeito favored him, and took no trouble to conceal 
it. 


WILD BLOOD 


241 


Finally one of the numerous German gunboats that 
were prowling like hungry dogs all over the South Seas, 
“protecting German interests” and very obviously looking 
for any stray bits of property to annex without offending 
England or America, came to Lelela to remonstrate. The 
captain had learned that Taulemeito had given Williams 
permission to blast an entrance through the inner reefs 
and thereby secure excellent harborage. 

That was a monstrous offense. Something would 
have to be done about it. If Taulemeito would accept a 
German consul as adviser and give German planters lands 
and German traders certain monopolies, and turn Will- 
iams over to the few German soldiers that would be left 
to seize him on his return, then the monstrous offense 
would be ignored. 

Taulemeito was furious, but he had the judgment not 
to show it. He was too proud to yield, too sensible to 
fight. 

So he implored the pagan gods of his fathers to send 
a terrible storm and wreck the German on the outer reefs 
— for though there was the entrance into the harbor, the 
German had been timid about using it. It was very 
narrow. 

The terrible storm did not arrive. But a British gun- 
boat did. In some mysterious way the Britisher, who 
was probably detailed to keep German topsails on the 
horizon, learned why the German had slipped from the 
Apia Harbor — after circulating the report that she was 
homeward-bound. 

Taulemeito was very sorry that the gods of his fathers 
had compromised on a British gunboat when it was a 
hurricane he had wanted. But as the British captain 
came through the reef-entrance and complimented Taule- 


242 


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meito on his harbor and said that even if Williams had 
done it it was a good job, the chief decided that maybe 
his gods knew what they were about after all. But he 
was exceedingly disappointed that there had not been a 
battle. The German departed and the Britisher, after 
many compliments and no requests, also disappeared. 

And whenever Williams showed up, Taulemeito wel- 
comed him and gave him the supplies that had in one 
way and another been gathered and stored away. Per- 
haps traders and storekeepers even as far away as Apia 
wondered what on earth that “heath’n king” was doing 
with so much tinned stuff, rope, canvas, oil and — tar. 
There was no accounting for the tastes of heathen kings. 
And though strictly against the law of three nations, 
Taulemeito often succeeded in getting powder and even 
dynamite — and Williams paid him well. 

After the affair at Dakaru, when Williams had 
released Samoans from Grahame’s slavery and caused 
one man from Lelela itself to be returned home, Taule- 
meito himself declared Williams to be his own brother 
and threw the protection of his kingship — such as it was 
— about him. That was how it came about that the Sally 
Martin was a welcomed ship at Lelela. 

We had made a trip of a good three thousand miles 
and used up some three months’ time; and of course 
Williams thought the schooner had to be bleached and 
scraped, et cetera, et cetera. In cold climates a fellow 
may find it convenient to do a little work to get his blood 
circulating. But not at Lelela. Williams must have got 
his brother the chief to take an interest, for everybody 
from babies to doddering ancients turned to and made so 
much clatter and bustle that my absence was not noticed. 
Yet the crew had a rich, glorious time. Work was like 


WILD BLOOD 


243 


play; play like what it always was in those unchristian- 
ized days. Everything that a generous Creator, who 
must have loved the old Samoans well, had bestowed in 
the way of food was laid at the feet of the men ; bananas, 
cooked, as Hawkins said “forty-’leven ways/’ breadfruit 
baked in the juice of coconut, yams, palusami , though 
there was also meat; fish and fruit — and flowers. 

Many a puaka squealed plaintively, but in vain. We 
were ravenous for green vegetables and fruit. Hawkins 
undertook to eat all the custard apples on the island. To 
our weary, hungry bodies it was all nonu fiafia — “fruit 
that makes you happy.” 

There were sports, games and dances, laughter and 
flirtations. Sivas and — horrors — the dreadful po-ula in 
the moonlight. 

The Yankee missionaries came to see the dance that 
lost people their souls, and had all their expectations 
gratified. I fancy they nearly lost their own angangas 
to see those exquisite, rippling rhythms of dark, moonlit 
bodies fluttering in wild grace — frenetic, but never 
awkward, never without a liquid, symmetrical movement. 

Nothing was withheld from the malaga, the traveling 
party, of the chief’s brother. Big, bearded men, solemn 
old fellows who hadn’t laughed since the treacherous 
barbecue at Turkee, made themselves ridiculous with 
merriment. 

The Yankee missionaries, like a pair of dyspeptic 
Jeremiahs, brooded gloweringly. Father Rinieri went 
his way, gentle, perceptive; the imperturbable half-smile, 
like a flame of benediction, never vanished. He never 
went far without a troop of imps charging down on him, 
nudging and jostling to get their little black heads under 
his hands. 


244 


WILD BLOOD 


I wondered what Dula thought of it all. Davenant 
himself, perhaps the more troubled because Williams 
ignored him, gave no sign of enmity ; stared in a sort of 
detached curiosity. He kept apart from everybody — 
or seemed to. And it was not by accident that I found 
he and Shaylor were sometimes together at night. 

The chiefs wife, one of them — Taulemeito was a 
remorseless old sinner and had three or four wives ; and 
he kept peace in his family, too — took Dula into her own 
house. There was no way of my knowing what she 
thought of having no privacy ; of having groups of eager, 
friendly, chattering girls and women crowding in upon 
her, fingering every garment in wondering innocence, 
watching her dress, watching her undress, pressing gifts 
upon her, laughing, decking her willy-nilly with flowers, 
offering perfumes of their own distillation, and begging 
the secrets of her own toilet. She found some relief, if it 
was relief, from the pressing attention of the irrepressible 
women, in the company of Father Rinieri. 

We stayed on and on at Lelela. I had begun to won- 
der a little if we would make Dakaru within the hundred 
and eighty days. 

Some other people may have also wondered a little 
that Williams remained so long when he knew it was 
risky. The crew did not have much time to wonder — 
they were that contented. 

They did learn what Williams’s reputation was like in 
those waters. It was known all over Australia, too; but 
from Samoa westward was where he had made that 
reputation what it was. 

They learned how greatly many white men were 
afraid of him. The German traders then at Lelela, three 


WILD BLOOD 


245 


of them, bowed respectfully and kept out of his way. 
They even seemed to tremble under his eyes. 

Didn’t they have reason to tremble? Wasn’t he a 
ferocious pirate — killed men quickly, as men killed flies? 

Wasn’t he sometimes called “Williams the Cannibal”? 
He was. 

And the German traders probably believed it. One 
thing was certain: They believed that Williams was 
dangerous. 

The crew was having a perpetual holiday. The Sally 
Martin had long before been put into shipshape, and the 
men lay around eating, flirting, sleeping, doing nothing 
with that magic ease that settles upon men in the tropics. 

The original land of the lotus was Samoa. I know 
other beach-combers say it was some other place. But 
they are wrong. It was Samoa. 

I know. I have been drunk on every island from 
Tahiti to Ysabel. Well, maybe not on every one. There 
are about three thousand of them, and some of the stuff 
a fellow has to put up with in the remoter places is weak. 
Wouldn’t make a fly dizzy. 

Williams, always a solitary man, kept pretty much 
out of sight when the work was done. Except that he 
had not shown his usual energy at work, and a new 
uninterpretable expression — which I thought might have 
been due to a certain thinness of face — shadowed his 
features, he appeared to be but little the worse for his 
wound. 

Just at the present he was waiting for a boat to re- 
turn that Taulemeito had sent to Apia. Williams wanted 
dynamite. Taulemeito had none in store for him. 

A note to an American engineer — doing some work 
for a German company, who had on previous occasions 


246 


WILD BLOOD 


furnished the explosive at about ten times its value — 
had been sent. It was better to try to get it that way 
than to go himself or send me. He was known at Apia, 
known well. I was untrustworthy — and known well to 
every shanty bar on the apia beach. 

Malua, a young chief himself, and a man of temper, 
was in charge of the party. Had his tongue been cut out 
he would not any sooner have told where Williams was. 
The American engineer would know ; but that was one 
of the risks that had to be taken. 

Let me say here and get it over with that, though 
Williams — who knew a great deal about explosives and 
how to make them explode — tried always to have dyna- 
mite on hand, he wanted it this time for a definite and 
commonplace purpose. After he reached Dakaru he 
intended to go up to the Carolines, where the drowsy 
Spaniards were not inquisitive, and the officials were 
sympathetic toward any one who weighed their palms 
with gold. He knew where there was an obscure and 
excellent harbor, if, like the one at Lelela, an entrance 
was widened. He would get hold of a ship somehow 
and, as restless and foredoomed to fail as the accursed 
Flying Dutchman, start again. 

At the back of his head, I surmise, was the vague 
idea of getting together a fortune and some day quietly 
returning to civilization. That is the sort of mirage that 
all the wild, roaming, reckless men of the far places see, 
though down at the bottom of their souls most of them 
realize they would rather die than settle amid the stupid 
comforts of their tamed fellows. 

Anyway, this would be the only chance he would 
have of getting his precious dynamite without returning 
to Samoa — and for months to come gunboats, if not sol- 


WILD BLOOD 


247 


diers, would be watching 1 Lelela. There were two or 
three resident traders there, Germans stubbornly hang- 
ing on and being solicitously well behaved and agree- 
able ; there were missionaries, converted natives, and 
others too, ready to babble excitedly. 

A trading-schooner, bringing supplies to the resident 
storekeepers, might come at any time and scatter the 
report — though there was a poor chance of its getting 
out to do the scattering if it came before we left. 

Nor was there any chance of a boat getting away 
until Malua returned from Apia. Taulemeito prohibited 
any boats going beyond the outer reefs. But Williams 
had to wait after he was ready to leave. 

That sums up the general situation. 

Raikes knew how to catch the palm-sap, and the 
little patience and no labor needed for its fermentation 
appealed to him; so he got drunk. He was harmless 
enough, but more lamentatious than ever. When I am 
sober, drunken men are disagreeable in my sight. Even 
after — to be done with him — I promised never to doubt 
in the least that he had been a true friend to Hawkins and 
myself, he persisted in wanting to prove it. 

He was a venomous little devil. His present hate 
was Davenant and Shaylor. Davenant had money. He 
said Shaylor was getting it. Did I know they met fre- 
quently after dark? I did. Did I know Shaylor and 
the Yankee missionaries were “chummy”? I did — so 
did Williams. It is ghastly to see a one-eyed man cry. I 
walked off. I went down to watch Hawkins eat. That 
had very nearly become Lelela’s favorite amusement. 

Hawkins was an adored monstrosity to those simple 
natives. They never grew weary of wondering at his 
size. His heartiness and untiring fun made them love 


248 


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him. But they, valiant eaters themselves, became 
obsessed with the futile ambition to see him so filled 
with food he would refuse another bite. 

“My heavens, man,” he said with aggrieved accent, 
stroking the huge outline of his body when I had sar- 
castically commented on his capacity, “you mus’ remem- 
ber I was empty!” 

I told him Raikes was drunk, vaguely implying that 
we too could soon be likewise. He absent-mindedly 
waved the suggestion away, and looked with a kind of 
studious apprehension at the very large pineapple some 
giggling girls were triumphantly peeling. He ate it. 
His relish was insincere, but he ate it. 

Then he very craftily saved his reputation by singing. 
He did not sing very loudly, it is true; but the second 
pineapple, which would surely have vanquished him, was 
laid aside while the giggling girls, cross-legged on the 
grass, listened to the amazing vocal rumble of a monot- 
onous chantey. 

Sometime after somebody gave me a drink of kava. 
Then I bribed a boy to bring down the shells of fermented 
juice Raikes had hired him to set in the coconut-palm. 

And, being started, I took a paopao, a small dugout, 
and went to the ship; went into Williams’s room, broke 
the lock and carried away the three remaining bottles. 
By night I was carried away with the idea of visiting 
and conversing with, and possibly disputing high ques- 
tions of theology, with Father Rinieri — and also discuss- 
ing the deviltry of Christians. 

It was night, starlit, and the moon was not up. I had 
many things on my mind, and again was submerged in 
the recurrent world-weariness that ebbed and flowed in 
from time to time upon me. 


WILD BLOOD 


249 


I went into Father Rinieri’s house. Dula was stand- 
ing by a table, the oil lamp throwing its glow up into her 
dark, vivid face. A chair was by the table. An open 
book on it. She had perhaps stood up when she heard 
me coming. Somehow I did not then feel the least un- 
comfortable under her eyes, though she looked at me 
very hard, directly. 

I waved a friendly hand, said something by way of 
greeting and sat down. She had treated me on the ship 
with a kind of pointed disregard that hurt, that reached 
down almost to a feeling of shame. 

I had seen but little of her in the village. Now we 
were face to face, and I was wholly at ease. 

She probably at once noticed the bottle under my arm, 
and for a moment seemed about to assume an attitude of 
chill disapproval. But I inquired for Father Rinieri. 

He would be back presently. A baby was sick. A 
baby that had but recently been baptized, and the parents 
were a little fearful lest the sickness was punishment 
from the native gods. He had gone to reassure them. 

Dula sat down. Her fingers idly closed the book. 
She adjusted the wick, or pretended to, and said: 

“These people seem to think a great deal of you.” 

She looked at me as if awaiting an answer, if not an 
explanation. I was in a mood for using words. I told 
her these people were savages, which meant they didn’t 
care for anything but the essentials of life — love, laugh- 
ter and kindness; that awkward clothes, cold, heartless 
morals, and the cruel, merciless rigmarole of law were 
things they cared nothing about. 

“And your people and mine,” I went on, “come here 
and tell ’em God won’t listen to prayers that aren’t said 
in English!” 


250 


WILD BLOOD 


“Father Rinieri is Italian/' she said quickly with a 
suggestion of pride. 

“Well,” I returned, “God used to require prayers in 
Latin. But the Yankees have changed ail that.” 

She said almost fearfully that she believed I really 
meant it, and it was incredible — such words as I used. 

I went off like a handful of powder touched by a 
match. 

“Your blessed uncle, bearded to conceal his kinship 
with the devil ; this fellow Shaylor, who seems to think 
every native girl is like a taataa a le ala — no, I won’t tell 
you what it means — and those lean Yankees yeowling 
about sin to people that even haven’t a word for it — they 
are Christians. And Hurricane Williams is a cursed 
outlaw, and heathen. 

“So it was right for them to work with prayers, 
money and threats of God’s sulphur lake on one of the 
half-converted fellows in Malua’s party that’s gone to 
Apia. And he’s to spread the news so if there isfi’t a gun- 
boat handy the law-abiding whites can put out in a whaler 
or trader, or something and come here and catch him.” 

I waved her into silence. Her face was aflame, an- 
guished with surprise, fear, a mingling of emotions. 
Obviously too she was trying to doubt my truth. 

“I know I’m drunk. I know I’m drunk,” I insisted 
coarsely — though of course I was not anything of the 
kind. “I know what you think of me, too. But some- 
body had to get drunk, didn’t they? With such a thing 
like that hangin’ over us? Williams and I are all that 
know it — and now you. 

“I came to tell Father Rinieri — ’cause Williams made 
me swear not to tell a native or a member of the crew. 
He meant not to tell anybody, but I’m civilized enough 


WILD BLOOD 


251 


to know how to evade an oath. I can tell a woman or a 
priest — 

“Hurricane Williams, the outlaw, cannibal-lover, 
brutal blackguard, pirate, ruffian, murderer, doesn’t 
want Chief Taulemeito to find out ’cause he might kill 
Davenant, Shaylor, missionaries and all the natives that 
have learned to pray in English. Williams wouldn’t be- 
lieve a white man on oath — no,” I shot at her cruelly, 
revengefully — “no, or a white woman either. But he does 
believe that no Lelelan would betray him. For one thing, 
Taulemeito would poke a spear into a native that showed 
any such symptom of being civilized — 

“Aw, it isn’t for any love of Davenant or Shaylor or 
the hungry Yankees that Williams’s doin’ it. He knows 
if Taulemeito killed them all the gunboats under heaven 
would come in here and hang Taulemeito, shell the vil- 
lage, blow to pieces the girls that put those flowers in 
your hair and the babies that Father Rinieri’s christened, 
those larking boys yelling at play down there on the 
grass now, and the old, old hags that sit and mumble of 
their girlhood. 

“That’s what you white people do. I’m an outcast, a 
drunkard, half-naked, thievish beach-comber and proud 
of it!” 

I was not proud of it, of course. But there is pride 
in shame, a certain glory to be squeezed out of even self- 
debasement. 

She flared: “You don’t hate them any more than I 
do. I would ask nothing better than to stay here, stay 
right here, become as one of the natives ” 

She paused, her voice changed to a lower pitch, and 
I saw the subtle presence of some kind of doubt, though 
she said : “ — after we go — after we come back from — ” 


2$2 


WILD BLOOD 


Her slender arm reached out in a slow gesture 
toward the ocean and Dakaru. 

Then meditatively, scarcely speaking for me though 
directly to me, she said 

“My grandmother was very religious, but after her 
death — He” — another gesture toward the doorway — 
“he is almost the first priest I have seen since then, and — 
and — I haven't forgotten as much as I thought.” 

She added quickly, almost fiercely clenching her 
hands: “But he shan’t know! His lips would shrivel 
before they would pronounce, ‘absolvo te’ to' me. 

“Oh, I must, I will go through with it! My poor 
mother — I’d rather lose my soul too than — than — let him 
go on contented and thinking he is safe!” 

There were actually tears in her eyes. Her mother 
had died outside of the church when she died by her 
own hand; and that must have been a terrible grief to 
the old grandmother, and in a way contributed to Dula’s 
hatred for Grahame. 

I blurted out, probably with some nebulous, half- 
formed intention of giving her a little relief of mind, 
that Grahame had not ’scaped scatheless. I told most of 
what I knew, and other things as well. 

I told of how we — Williams and I and certain Sa- 
moans, some of them from this very village — had gone 
to Dakaru, of the way men ran and yelled and died ; of 
the dogs and Portuguese; of the yellow-haired girl- 
child; of how Williams — the “nigger-lover” — had killed 
cannibals, suddenly gone wild, that rushed for the house ; 
how Grahame rode and Williams sprang; of the knife 
that went like an arrow. 

And I told of what Williams had learned since then, 
getting it from a Portuguese who had been on the island 


WILD BLOOD 


2 53 


at the time, and was one of those whom Grahame had 
made promise never to whisper the horrible story. But 
then the Portuguese, being far from Dakaru, had 
thought to win favor with Hurricane Williams by relat- 
ing the grim, ghastly tragedy that had years before be- 
fallen his enemy; and he had told how the big Solomon 
blacks, dragged to Dakaru by slavers, had caught the 
woman — the wife — the mother of the radiant child — 
who had trustingly treated those cannibals as if they 
were human, had sentiments and feelings. 

I told too that the blacks often threw their victims 
on to the fire alive to give the flesh a richer flavor. Dula 
had bent forward pressing her hands to her face before 
my story was ended. I had in my time seen a cannibal 
feast, a wild one, not baked in ovens, but in the hills 
quivering, scorched, raw. And I went on and on and on, 
transposing to Dakaru what I had seen in the uplands 
of Ysabel, telling all my sickened eyes had seen. Again 
and again she begged me to stop and cried out low- 
voiced, pleading, aghast. 

But the gift of tongues was upon me. I could not 
stop. I had never told that unforgettable tale before, 
though memory of it had often awakened me chokingly 
out of sleep. 

Williams too had been there. True, blacks had 
feasted on blacks; but he must, as I did, have en- 
visioned the children, the women, the men of our own 
color and race that had suffered and perished likewise 
— for why else did that iron, cruel man avert his face and 
put his hand to his forehead when the wild brutes were 
only punishing other savages that had treacherously 
tried to kill him? 

And I told her that it was because of what Williams 


254 


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had seen at Ysabel, and elsewhere, that “he rushed back 
to Grahame’s compound to protect your — sister!” 

I had said it without thinking. A mere sense of the 
dramatic, one that often without forethought or intention 
makes me twist even the truth and imagine things that 
never happened, leaped unerringly to that word. Then 
too, I had nearly emptied the bottle I brought. Words, 
sentences, streamed out effortlessly, heedlessly. 

“Since then he met the Portuguese and learned how 
her mother died. I know nothing of what’s at the base 
of his brain, no one else does, but I don’t believe he 
would have taken those Solomon Islanders back had he 
known why Grahame killed so many of them — 

“You see, Grahame still treats ’em better than any 
other planter, except he butchers ’em first time they 
wiggle their toes over his faintest chalk-line. Break any 
kind of a rule, you know. 

“Williams — I can’t say he loves ’em. No. But he 
can’t think the worst of them are bad as the worst o’ the 
whites — and it’s the worst of them that come down into 
these seas. Missionaries an’ all ! Thank God I’m 
damned, and no kin to any man that worships Him !” 

I roared it out, for my story was done. And if there 
had been anything more blasphemous to say, and I could 
have thought of it, I would have said it. A sudden im- 
pulsive red anger was on me to say the worst and mean 
it. I don’t think Dula heard, for I glared at her waiting 
for her to speak or look up, but she was still leaning over, 
her back to me, her hands against the sides of her head. 
She was sobbing noiselessly. 

Then in the stillness I heard a slow step, right by the 
door. Father Rinieri had paused; he had heard. 

He came in slowly, gently — so very slowly, quietly — 


WILD BLOOD 


2 55 


looked at me, looked across to the girl who had been 
caught and crushed between emotions as between mill- 
stones. He came up to me with a half-smile deepening, 
broadening like a glow upon his worn face. 

His very presence was quieting. There was no anger, 
no offense, not even the twinge of an injury forgiven, on 
his countenance. It was as if from the serene wisdom of 
years upon years, and knowledge gathered straight from 
the hearts of men, he felt just the least little shadow of 
amusement for the hot words of fools who had no idea 
what they were saying or doing. 

There was nothing of sorrow in his face. Nothing. 
He was too ripened with wisdom to show it, no> matter 
how much he may have been hurt at heart. He glanced 
at the bottle in my hand, then into my eyes; and there 
was not a flickering trace of reproach, but only the old, 
calm, sweet gentleness, and somehow the impression of 
sympathetic understanding that had neither approved 
nor disapproved, and yet made one feel stirred, troubled 
with some kind of inner uneasiness away down where a 
discarded conscience still lurked. 

He, put an arm around my shoulders gently, affec- 
tionately. And he said in that low, full-toned, rich, ten- 
der voice whose very sound — no matter what the words 
— reached the ears like a benediction : “Dan, my boy” — 
he smiled, and there was actually light on his face — “if 
you were even as bad as you try to be, He would still 
love you!” 

Father Rinieri lifted his hand slightly, pointing up- 
ward. Silence and pause; he raised his arm from my 
shoulder, for a moment softly rested his hand on my 
lowered head, then turned away toward Dula. I hurried 
out into the night, my head drooping, feet stumbling. 


CHAPTER XII 


AUDACITY IS LUCK ! 

D AVENANT, those days, seemed to try not to be 
seen with anybody. But natives will babble and they 
notice everything. So in the dark I had crept upon him * 
and Shaylor and listened, and learned that Davenant had 
first tried to interest the three German resident traders 
in an attempt to overpower Williams. 

The Germans knew more about Hurricane Williams 
than Davenant, and they precipitously rejected the plan. 
Too, they knew how Taulemeito would take it, and they 
were painfully eager to be friends with the chief. He 
could make them rich men by simply letting them alone. 
Or he could ruin them by merely dropping a word that 
would be carried in all directions so that no man of that 
place w r ould trade with them. 

Then Davenant and Shaylor had turned to the 
Yankee missionaries and rehearsed the duty they owed 
the law to assist in having Williams apprehended. So 
when Malua’s boat went — ostensibly by Amoa, though 
everybody knew it was going to Apia — it carried as one 
of the crew a native who had promised to spread the re- 
port that Williams was at Lelela. A native was likely jto 
promise anything when he received as much money as 
had been given him. 

But would he keep the promise? Would not the 
keen-eyed Malua notice there was something on the fel- 
256 


WILD BLOOD 


257 


low’s mind? Malua was too young to trifle with dis- 
cretions ; if he hated a man he killed him. 

I frequently lurked near the meeting-place that Daven- 
ant and Shaylor used, and though much of what they 
said was mumbled too low for me to catch it, I had heard 
Shaylor say the crew would turn on Williams, that the 
schooner could be stolen out; and Davenant had spoken 
of the rifles in the cabin, and they were confident of 
putting together some acceptable plan if relief did not 
come from Apia. 

Dula’s name was mentioned. Shaylor complained 
that she ignored his efforts at courtesy. What Davenant 
replied I could not hear. 

It was about time that Malua should return, and we 
were all more or less with eyes to seaward. Some of the 
natives had gone to the hills to scan the ocean’s distant 
rim. Davenant, alone and apart from the village, walked 
back and forth. 

“W’at’s he goin’ ’o do to ’im?” Hawkins demanded of 
me, sluggishly throwing an arm at the lone figure. 
“Williams, I mean.” 

“Can’t say, Ben. One of these days he’ll probably kill 
him just like that.” 

I snapped finger and thumb. 

“I can tell what men say Williams once did to an- 
other fellow that shot at him from the back and missed. 
Williams gave him a pistol, one shot, an’ didn’t take a 
thing himself. Faced the gun at fifty paces empty- 
handed. And the fellow didn’t miss, but Williams — 
empty-handed — caught him and broke his neck. Only 
I don’t believe a word of it.” 

Hawkins cocked his head reflectively, then said: 

“Nawp. That’s the kind o’ stuff these traders b’lieve. 


258 


WILD BLOOD 


But that’s a mighty good way ’o kill a man. Make you 
feel yerself a he-ro. Only Carp Taylor’s a mighty good 
shot, and I can’t run. Now my i-dee of a nice quiet 
murder is to go set down on a fellow when he’s asleep. 
Takin’ on weight, Red-Top.” 

He patted his huge belly complacently. 

“Takin’ on weight. Let me enemies beware. An’ 
say, if we stay at Dakaru long ’nough Carp Taylor’ll 
show up. Him an’ Grahame’re thick. Know what he 
done to me, Red-Top? Had the crew knock me to sleep, 
’en Taylor whaled me with a rope. ’F I ever catch that 
fellow ’sleep he won’t have nothin’ but a grease-spot for 
an ep-e-taph But what’s matter with Will- 

iams? He looks — you’ve noticed how he looks?” 

I denied any such attentiveness. Hawkins ignored 
my denial. 

“Think it’s that woman?” he said with the very self- 
conscious effort of one pretending to have no interest in 
his question. 

“What woman?” 

Hawkins snorted. After meditating a moment he 
said: 

“An’ what’s matter with her? I know a woman ain’t 
happy ’less she’s sufferin’, but — say, Red-Top, don’t 
s’pose Williams’ll fall for ’er, do you? He acts funny. 
Just about like a fellow does when he begins to think 
maybe the lady is really dyin’ for love o’ him.” 

With a bit of spirit I told him he was a fool; that 
Taulemeito had offered his own sister to Williams, and 
a man had to have pretty strong objections to women to 
dare evade marrying a chief’s sister. Moreover, as 
Hawkins could see, a fellow didn’t have to be drunk to 
praise the beauty of Sampan damsels, as was absolutely 


WILD BLOOD 


259 


necessary when he went courting farther west, say over 
in the Solomons. 

“Red-Top,” he announced solemnly, having weighed 
my words, “I’m thinkin’ of lookin’ out for a Mormon 
mish-nary — so I c’n be convert-ted.” 

Our idyl was ended. Almost from that moment our 
peace fled. There are old men who somehow dodged 
death and the treachery of friends, who remember Hur- 
ricane Williams or his name ; and when they talk of him 
they talk of what happened in the next few weeks. 

According to the German Naval Bureau Williams 
was arrested at Lelela on the same day Hawkins and I 
sprawled in the generous, wide-reaching shade of a 
breadfruit-tree and discussed Mormons and things. 
What was done with him after the arrest doesn’t appear 
in the archives. 

It does appear, however, that sometime later the gun- 
boat Freidrich was disabled by a hurricane (sic). Yet 
some people say the Germans haven’t a sense of humor. 

Hawkins and I were roused from our lethargic dia- 
logue by an increasing air of excitement in the village. 
Some boys had rushed down from the hilly lookout to 
announce that a ship with smoke streaming and sails set 
was bearing toward Lelela from the south. 

It was useless for Williams to try to escape to sea. 
He could not get out without being towed by boats. And 
as it was still morning the steam-driven ship would easily 
overhaul him before darkness came on. 

Our crew suddenly recalled that they were pressed 
men and began to remember dear drab, dirty Turkee. 
They had been dragged from their homes and treated 
like slaves. As they babbled excitedly petals fell from 
the chains of flowers about their necks, and some of 


26 o 


WILD BLOOD 


them puffed heavily from over-loaded stomachs. They 
remembered that they had been badly abused, and now 
warm, well fed and rested, could not understand why 
they had put up with such treatment. 

Raikes was very loud in his memory of wrong suf- 
fered, for as the ship came on there was no doubt as to 
her German and warlike character. 

Some expected Williams to take to the hills. But 
Hawkins grumbled aside to me: 

“ 'F he does I’ll desert 'im, 'cause I simply can't 
climb trees or things." 

“Look about you; look about carefully, Ben," I re- 
torted, “and you probably won’t hesitate at a little thing 
like an eighty-foot palm." 

The natives, particularly the youngsters and girls, 
understood enough fragments of English — and those 
who understood best repeated what they heard with in- 
accurate emphasis — to know what Williams’s men were 
talking. An uncivilized Samoan doesn't shrink much 
more than a Christian from treachery toward an enemy 
but never toward a friend. 

Even the faces of the happy, thoughtless little tots 
were glowering, savage, miniature frowns. I laid a 
hand on Hawkins’s shoulder, and with the other pointed 
afar through the trees where a small party of three or 
four natives with spears in hand were moving away 
toward the forest, and with them moved the two Yankee 
missionaries. 

“What the devil!" he exclaimed. 

I swept my arm farther to the left toward Taule- 
meito’s house, where groups were moving, bristling with 
war-clubs and spears. 

“We're goin’ fight!" he cried incredulously, but with 


WILD BLOOD 


261 


a little of the eagerness of a man who welcomes battle, 
even one of spears and small arms against cannon. 

I told him I did not know what was coming off, but 
that Williams would undoubtedly give himself up before 
he would let Taulemeito undertake a hopeless battle. 

“And I would sooner think Davenant, over there 
with the German traders, would shave his beard than 
Williams’d give himself up — to Germans!” 

The German traders with beards trimmed, faces 
washed, and in fairly clean white suits, seemed to have 
delegated themselves as a receiving-committee to wel- 
come the officers of their country. And Davenant had 
attached himself to them. Shaylor joined the group. 

Others of the Sally Martin , suddenly feeling the ties 
of white blood and noticing the bristling pageantry of 
Lelela, also approached as if to identify themselves with 
the German party, now in the ascendency. 

“Le’s go over an’ tell 'em when they can go to hell,” 
said Hawkins, straightening his elephantine shoulders 
and taking a step forward. 

I clutched his arm, telling him that I approved his 
sentiments, but the natives might not understand. It 
would be better if we showed in some more unmistakable 
way that we were not white men. 

“Hey, you son,” Hawkins roared coaxingly at one of 
the little boys of not more than a dozen years, who, 
though their faith was shaken in human nature, still 
hovered hopefully about me, an old friend, and Hawkins, 
the most wonderful man they had ever seen. 

“Wallamazooki, or whoever you are. Come ’ere.” 

The boy hesitatingly edged nearer, taking many 
glances at my face as if wondering if even I — who had 
spanked him from his creeping days — was going to let 


262 WILD BLOOD 

him get into some kind of difficulty under pretense of 
friendship. 

Hawkins stooped and earnestly asked the youngster 
if “you speak ’em hell-fire — go-to ?” 

The boy was a little bewildered and stared up at me 
for enlightenment. But the other youngsters had closed 
in listeningly, and one precocious youth announced, 
frantically eager: 

“I spek ’im, missa (mister). All same mish-i-man. 
I spek him!” 

It was true that missionaries did make a frequent and 
extended — but no doubt quite proper — use of the words 
Hawkins had inquired of ; and it is equally true that al 
children learn more readily to swear than to pray. And 
Hawkins did a very, very w'icked thing in sending those 
young innocents to the beach to deliver certain profane 
messages. 

True, he had intended that only one little boy should 
walk up and quietly present the compliments of Mr. Dan 
McGuire and Mr. Ben Hawkins to sundry and all, and 
express the deep and sincere wish that much evil would 
befall them, the slightest of which was an eternal bath in 
a lake of fire. Nothing was to be gained by it, of course, 
except that ineffable satisfaction of letting people know 
what you think of them. 

But in his innocence Hawkins launched pandemo- 
nium. Those imps delivered their messages at the top of 
their voices. Other imps heard them from afar and 
came scrambling and screaming. 

Hawkins, alarmed at the general demonstration, 
which had developed into rock-pelting without any les- 
sening of vocal racket, yelled at his imps. They misun- 


WILD BLOOD £63 

derstood his cry of ‘day off that” for encouragement ; 
and they declined to listen to me at all. 

I was getting really uneasy. If Williams or Taule- 
meito had wanted a demonstration they could have ar- 
ranged one without our interference. 

Some one of the pestered group made the mistake of 
returning rocks at the children, and the screaming, eager, 
wild little rascals joyfully accepted the challenge. They 
rained words and whatever they could get their hands 
on; and so many missiles could not miss, though there 
was some very energetic ducking and dodging going on 
down at the beach. 

And the gunboat was now close at hand, not more 
than a mile off the outer reef. 

Things looked bad, and presently they looked worse. 
A group of warriors came running out of the village, 
spears in their hands, and they were yelling too. Two of 
the Germans made straight for the water, forgetful of 
their clean clothes; and the whole party would perhaps 
have undertaken to swim somewhere had it not soon ap- 
peared that the native men were rebuking and silencing 
the children. 

It appeared that Taulemeito was to receive the Ger- 
man captain in all the dignity and pomp his savage court 
was able to present ; and he sent word that a place await- 
ed the traders upon his right hand. Also that he very 
much desired to have his heart lightened by the presence 
of the others. 

It appeared like an obvious effort to make amends 
for the insults of the children, if not a somewhat humble 
attempt to secure at the eleventh hour good grace from 
the party that could make trouble for him if it com- 


264 


WILD BLOOD 


plained to the gunboat. But appearances are deceptive in 
that part of the world. 

Taulemeito’s official house was a large structure 
apart from other houses on the border of the malae, or 
green common, where all the important sports and coun- 
cils of the village were held. The walls of the house 
were mats, and on a function of state important enough 
to cause the chief to use the house, these were folded up 
and everybody, from the chiefs and leading men who 
squatted cross-legged in a semicircle about him to the 
women and children hovering on the outskirts, was a 
spectator. 

Hawkins and I loitered about among the agitated 
natives. I knew it would be some time before the cere- 
mony began, for Taulemeito had not yet come from his 
smaller and private residence near by, where he enjoyed 
a certain kingly exclusiveness and privacy — being about 
the only person in that merry, hospitable village who 
did. 

Williams sent for me, and when I reached him his 
message was brief and surprising. 

“Watch Davenant. If need be, kill him. ,, 

A dozen questions tried to leap out at once, but all I 
could say was : 

“What the devil's up?” 

Hawkins must have received instructions of some 
kind, too, for I saw him amid the frankly hostile glances 
of both the natives and the whites edge in close to the 
three traders; and being unable to sit cross-legged he 
half-sprawled on his stomach. 

Davenant had the faculty of appearing to be apart 
even when in the midst of a group. Shaylor, talking 
very loud and rather impudently, was on his left hand. 


WILD BLOOD 


265 


Perhaps they thought I scrouged in near them to 
overhear. Shaylor ignored me with large concern, but 
Davenant gave me a long steady stare and smiled; that 
is, showed his long rows of exceedingly white and ap- 
parently sharp teeth. 

I noticed Father Rinieri and Dula coming to places 
evidently made for them some distance removed from the 
immediate semicircle, facing the seat Taulemeito would 
occupy, but much nearer than any other woman had. 
Dula’s eyes searched restlessly for Williams, and when she 
saw him, squatting motionlessly, eyes on the ground, 
she looked at him almost steadily. 

The Friedrich had hove-to beyond the outer reefs. 
By the set of her sails and the smoke curling from her 
funnel it was apparent that she did not intend to spend 
much time at Lelela. Well, no one wanted her. 

Two boats came ashore with officers and armed sail- 
ors. They were businesslike. Also perhaps a little ap- 
prehensive at the sight of the welcome arranged for them. 
They were greeted at the beach by a party headed by the 
tulafale, the chief’s spokesman, orator, prime minister, or 
what-you-will. The symbol of his rank is a long staff — 
symbolic perhaps of the length of his tongue. 

Captain Lumholtz was an excited little man not 
greatly unlike a miniature copy of Hawkins, and aroused 
the admiration of the natives by his large display of gilt 
and braid. He carried a sword longer than his own legs. 

He had with him the treacherous member of Malua’s 
crew and was intent on using him as an interpreter. In 
broken English — for the miserable Senva had sailed on a 
whaler and knew more English than was good for him — 
Captain Lumholtz, through Senva, demanded Hurricane 
Williams at once and forthwith. There would be no 


266 


WILD BLOOD 


trifling, no argument, no powwow. And the puffy cap- 
tain swept a pudgy arm toward his stolid sailors. 

He was persuaded, however, to come up and address 
himself to the chief. Senva was thoroughly frightened, 
for certain remarks were made to him that he did not 
translate. 

Now it happened that Taulemeito, who was brave 
and headstrong and seemed to think there was some kind 
of magic in Williams, had stubbornly determined to as- 
sert his rights against the whole of Germany if need be. 
He, of course, did not begin to appreciate the resources 
of a European nation. He had plenty of rifles and pow- 
der. He had Williams at hand to lead the fight. Will- 
iams probably would have readily taken to the hills. It 
would not have been the first time he had to sacrifice 
everything he had in order to escape. 

But Taulemeito swore that he would declare war on 
the gunboat. At most it did not have more than eighty 
men on board. It was a German gunboat. German gun- 
boats didn’t dare come into the harbor. 

Now a British gunboat would have been different. 
On such trivialities does colonial prestige hang. 

Captain Lumholtz, at once nervous and pompous, 
with two young officers scarcely less bedecked in 
wrinkled full dress, having left the armed sailors on the 
outskirts — where they were at once overwhelmed with 
coconuts, fruit and various delicacies by natives utterly 
incapable of not being generous — came stepping care- 
fully through the squatting circle. With difficulty he 
eased himself down into as nearly a cross-legged position 
as was possible for him. 

As he appeared, one of the German traders had ex- 
uberantly begun to raise his voice in some overjoyed wel- 


WILD BLOOD 


267 


come. But Hawkins growled. He more than growled, 
for he lifted a war-club borrowed from a native near by. 
Taulemeito too with slow dignity had turned his head 
and crushed the German with a long, deliberate glance. 

Captain Lumholtz, being new to the South Seas, not 
familiar with native ceremony, and perhaps finding his 
cramped legs unbearable, did not appreciate fully the 
Kava — Ava; for the Samoans have no “k” — ceremony, 
where girls, a little to one side of the chief and under 
the supervision of the tulafale , were chewing the root, 
at the same time swaying their bodies rhythmically, 
gracefully. Nothing of importance takes place without 
Kava being served, though the preliminary may be a 
little monotonous to one sitting painfully on unaccus- 
tomed legs. 

Captain Lumholtz decided that it devolved upon him 
to begin, and he addressed Senva, bidding him translate 
his demand for Hurricane Williams. The captain had 
scanned all the white men he saw, and he had not per- 
ceived Williams at all. Senva, dreadfully frightened, be- 
gan. But he was cut short by the irate Taulemeito. 

“Who art thou, born of a pig, to speak to my face in 
the presenec of chiefs and friends? Tell him who carries 
his long knife across his belly lest it trip his feet, that 
Taulemeito will cut thy head from thy shoulders and in 
his presence, here!” 

Two seconds of startled silence followed. Then Will- 
iams sprang to his feet, shouting at Captain Lumholtz. 

“There,” he cried, an arm like an outthrust sword 
leveled at Shaylor, “is the man you want!” 

It was as if he had suddenly become obsessed by a 
grim sense of humor. It was incredible. I felt my bones 
turn to jelly, and a shiver of amazement went through 


WILD BLOOD 




me. For seconds every one was jarred speechless; the 
psychic breath, so to speak, knocked out of them. 

Captain Lumholtz jerked his head nervously, eagerly, 
toward Shaylor, who had opened his mouth and half- 
lifted his hands stupidly. I heard Hawkins’s low-voiced 
rumbling threat to the men beside him, commanding si- 
lence — with the club. 

I suppose a hubbub would have broken out at the 
next instant if Williams had not begun to speak. He said 
probably fifty words and he said them rapidly, in 
Samoan and to Senva. 

I never knew a man who had such convincing, com- 
manding force to his words. Probably it was because he 
always really did mean what he said and backed it up 
with every ounce of his fierce strength. Anyway in two 
swift sentences he told Senva to identify Shaylor as Hur- 
ricane Williams or he, Senva, would die then and there. 

Williams’s eyes swept along the row of white men, 
along the traders, along the crew, ignored Shaylor and 
rested on Davenant for a fraction of a second. Will- 
iams’s look was a warning, cold and dangerous. 

Shaylor, stammering, inarticulate, was blurting a 
livid, profane denial. I felt a movement from Davenant 
who, cool, determined, was about to get to his feet. I 
caught him by the trousers band and jerked him down 
and he felt the muzzle of a revolver at the small of his 
back. 

Under Williams’s eyes, following his orders, I always 
lost my indecision and seemed caught up, supported, by 
some strong impulse. Davenant turned his head, a glit- 
ter of fright for once in his eyes, and he did not smile. 

“There are my crew,” said Williams, cutting through 
Shaylor’s voice and flinging a gesture toward the sur- 


WILD BLOOD 


269 


prised, palpitating men of the Sally Martin. “Ask 
them!” 

That was too much for even Shaylor. He gaped 
stupidly at the men, but as with one accord they avoided 
his eyes. 

“Do you mean — ” he began. 

“There is my log,” said Williams, lifting a book and 
holding it in readiness for Captain Lumholtz’s inspec- 
tion. “I pulled this man from a wreck at sea. He tried 
to capture my ship — did capture her. I was shot — in 
the back.” 

One of the German traders gasped: “Mein Gott!” 

Shaylor was on his feet, cursing wildly and shaking 
his arms furiously — and with every word and every 
move showing himself to be such a man as Captain Lum- 
holtz and his officers must have imagined the burly brute 
Williams to be. 

Williams’s voice, sharp, not high-pitched, came clear 
and distinct through Shaylor’s agitated protests. He 
was brief, but what he said seemed to clinch his position : 
He declared that fortunately he also had known Taule- 
meito for many years and they were friends, so he and 
his crew had been well treated. But he believed Taule- 
meito would be willing to give up “that man Williams” 
(as he called Shaylor) if Captain Lumholtz insisted. 

Captain Lumholtz had been glancing through the log. 
Whether or not he could read English with even as much 
facility as he spoke it is doubtful ; but he was apparently 
satisfied. He closed the book and dropped it to the 
ground beside him. 

“Him Hu’lly Williams!” Senva eagerly volunteered, 
pointing at Shaylor. 


WILD BLOOD 


270 

Senva cried it frantically. Whether he had caught 
Williams’s eyes or his chief’s I do not know. 

There was not a native even to the jostling, breath- 
less outskirts of the throng that did not understand what 
was being done; and they were excited, inwardly burst- 
ing with glee that the hateful gunboat men were being 
hoodwinked. They did not appreciate that Williams was 
taking a rash chance to save the village from vengeance. 

He had planned it evidently from the time he realized 
how stubbornly Taulemeito was determined on fighting. 
Williams had had the two Yankee missionaries removed 
from the village because he knew that they could not, 
would not, be intimidated into silence. There is some- 
thing about even a Yankee missionary that commands re- 
spect when it comes to personal courage. 

“I coom dedermined to half dot man,” said Captain 
Lumboltz, blinking wickedly at Shaylor. “Und by 

I half ’im ! He iss a byrate, a byrate. I take 

’im to Ghermany und dey hang ’im dere!” 

The words were much more chilling, menacing, than 
they appear repeated in broken dialect; and Captain 
Lumholtz in spite of pudginess was evidently a man of 
firmness. 

Words passed between Taulemeito and Williams, and 
Williams translated that the chief was ready to give 
Shaylor up at once. Shaylor acted like a man already on 
the gallows, almost exhausted with terror. He appealed 
to the crew. He implored Davenant. Williams crossed 
to him, and the very glare of Williams’s eyes seemed to 
silence the miserable fellow. 

The people made way for the German sailors, who 
marched in, took possession of Shaylor and with abrupt, 
military quickness marched off again. 


WILD BLOOD 


271 


Shaylor was a broken man. Even I felt a sudden 
sympathy for him, though I knew he was far more safe 
than if he remained within striking distance of Williams. 

Williams seldom gave warning if he had cause for a 
man to die. But an appeal, an explanation to an Ameri- 
can consul in any port would start investigation to get 
him off free ; though Shaylor probably would not be able 
to make such an appeal until he had been carried clear 
to Germany. 

Captain Lumholtz, though stiffened with pride and 
pleasure, was exceedingly agreeable. He bowed clatter- 
ingly over the hand of Taulemeito and pledged the eter- 
nal friendship of Germany. He shook the hand of Hurri- 
cane Williams, thanked him for his service, wished him 
success and promised full punishment upon the terrible 
pirate — the “byrate” that certainly looked the part. 

And when he was gone three portly German traders 
had tears rolling down their cheeks. Hawkins had 
threatened to brain the first who opened his mouth, so 
they had not even greeted the glittering representative of 
their nation, the protector of their interests. However, 
they were solaced somewhat by certain concessions which 
Taulemeito in a cheerful mood extended to their trading. 

Hawkins in speaking of the incident remarked: 

“I never had a fist on one o’ them war-billies b’fore. 
Wonde’ful how the heft of 'em just makes you want ’o 
hit somebody. No wonder them Dutches kept their 
hatches battened down.” 

After a pause, reflective, studious, he said earnestly: 

“Red-Top, it’s funny, but I don’t know whether I 
want ’o laugh or cuss or say a prayer.” 

There was merriment in Lelela that night. Samoans 
have a high sense of humor; most of their conversation 


272 


WILD BLOOD 


is teasing*, fun-making, ridicule and jokes. And they 
were wild with gaiety. There was no hope, no expecta- 
tion of keeping the joke on the gunboat a secret; but the 
morrow is always far off. Besides there was the good 
chance that the imposition would not be discovered until 
the prisoner had been taken clear to Germany — if he were 
not hanged on a yard-arm first. 

Strange that Lumholtz had not mentioned the reward 
his country offered. Perhaps it had slipped his mind. 
Perhaps he was grateful that no one else mentioned it, 
so there would not be the inconvenience of having to 
share, to divide it. 

I went to Williams, who sat moodily alone in Taule- 
meito’s private house. 

“The devil loves his own/’ I said. “But Hawkins 
forgot an’ slipped a prayer toward Heaven. Maybe that’s 
what pulled us through. But ” 

He glanced at me ; and his eyes were silencing. Per- 
haps he was relieved to see that I was not drunk. I do 
not know. He seldom showed that he cared one way or 
the other. 

For a long time there was silence ; or at least it seemed 
a long time to me. Then he said, without looking at me, 
and in short quick-flung sentences, that he would give a 
thousand pounds if he could get a British or American 
consul to come into Lelela and raise his flag. 

Taulemeito would be outraged, but it was a choice of 
evils. The Germans eventually would make the village 
pay for that day’s work — unless a British or American 
flag were there. 

“The Germans will make them pay, make them pay,” 
he repeated. 

Then jerking his head up, he glared at me, his body 


WILD BLOOD 


273 


contracted as if about to leap, and involuntarily I shrank. 
Slowly, tensely, taking an oath upon himself, he said : 

“So help me God, I’ll wreck the ship that shells this 
village if I have to swim to get her, and go down with 
her!” 

Williams had never said anything like that before, 
had never so challenged the impossible. The fleeting 
fear that he zms mad, as some men declared, raced across 
my brain and vanished. 

No. No madness there; only the daring and deter- 
mination to have vengeance on whomever harmed his 
friends. 

Silence again, and a long pause. I started to slip 
away. I had no place to go, nothing to do; for oddly 
enough I did not feel like joining in the tumultuous cele- 
bration of the village. Hawkins was in the midst of 
glory ; but the other white men, strangely quiet — unin- 
vited for one thing — sat apart, talking low-voiced among 
themselves, wondering how and why they had been 
silenced, wondering that Williams had known — much 
less dared such a thing — that they would sit like mum- 
mies, fear-embalmed. 

The natives were now unfriendly toward them. They 
felt stranded and in danger. Nothing was left them but 
some desperate action, or — so they thought — the well- 
nigh equally desperate inaction. 

Raikes had urged them to appoint him as the leader 
of a committee to visit Williams and find out what was 
likely to happen to them. I wondered what they were 
talking of by this time, and I tried to slip from Will- 
iams’s presence. 

With a gesture he kept me seated. It seemed a long, 
long time before he said anything. Then he looked up 


274 


WILD blood; 


and spoke as if he had suddenly remembered what he 
wanted to say. But I had doubts. 

He remarked that I and Father Rinieri were friends ; 
and could I imagine what the priest wanted to see him 
about 

He broke off. 

Almost, if not quite, involuntarily I finished his 
sentence : 

“ — about her?” 

“Why ?” 

The word was sharp, mandatory. 

A little uneasily, but with something reckless vaguely 
stirring me, I said : 

“Skipper, I’m likely to tell you the truth — then have 
to lie like the devil to make you think I was joking.” 

By his hard gaze he demanded that I go on. 

I made the jump. I simply closed my eyes and flung 
my answer to him. 

“Skipper, women go to priests to tell ’em the names 
of the men they hate, and why. They can’t tell ’em why 
they love. Nobody knows that. But the other reason 
they go is to tell ’em who !” 

Two hours later Williams was still in the house of 
the priest, across from him at the little table, with the 
yellow flame of the lamp burning between them. To 
me, waiting impatiently in the darkness, it seemed that 
much time went by when neither spoke, and even then 
I could not hear all that I wished to hear. 


CHAPTER XIII 


a rope's end falls, swish — WHIR ! 

“HTHAT," I said to Hawkins in a mood to throw him 

^overboard, ‘‘is Dakaru.’’ 

“That," he repeated with complacent stubbornness, 
taking his pipe in one hand and extending the other 
requestfully, “ain’t nothin’. Just a cloud or somethin’." 

We had the morning watch. The sun was peeping up 
and the sails were full. 

“Think those boys there in the bow don’t know land 
when they see it?" 

I flung an indignant gesture at the Samoans who 
were staring at the faint low bluish mist-like form that 
touched the sea where sky and water met. 

“Awright," he rumbled. “Give me that pouch. It’s 
Dakaru." And having the pouch he added: “ — If it 
ain’t somethin’ else!" 

But it was Dakaru, and with ten Samoans headed 
by Malua and a half dozen white men — who rather 
imagined they would have something dreadful done to 
them any hour — with Dula and Davenant on board too, 
we were nearly at the long voyage’s end. 

We had left Lelela two days after Captain Lumholtz 
proudly went away with his cherished prisoner. 

In those two days a few things perhaps worth men- 
tioning had happened. 

Malua had returned from Apia, empty-handed and 
furious. 


275 


276 


WILD BLQOD 


At the feet of Taulemeito, before whom he poured 
out his story, he had brained the miserable Senva. And 
again at Williams’s request a party of men hurried the 
Yankee missionaries off to the hills. Malua swore to 
club them to death. They had inspired Senva to 
treachery. 

The American engineer at Apia, undoubtedly fright- 
ened and possibly truthful also, had said it was impos- 
sible to furnish dynamite. He had heard the report 
Senva gave out even before Malua learned it had been 
given out; and he conspired to hold Malua at Apia so 
he could not get away and give warning before the 
Friedrich had started. 

He and his German employers might have held a 
large healthy conger eel much more easily than Malua, 
when that young chief discovered what was in the air. 
He did not even appreciate the joke that had been played 
on the gunboat. His temper was up. 

And what had happened the night before he arrived 
home did not lessen his resentment against white men, 
all white men, who came overrunning the islands of his 
people, laying out plantations, feeding the natives rum 
and gewgaws, defiling the women, spreading disease and 
thrusting Bibles with the threat of hell-fire into their 
faces. 

Strangely enough he did not think of Williams as a 
white man ; but even face to face with the immobile seren- 
ity of Father Rinieri he had, with surprising bitterness 
for a Samoan, loosened his anger. 

That night when I had waited so long outside of 
Father Rinieri’s house I had not been eavesdropping. 
Of course I did not thrust my fingers into my ears or 
anything of the kind. But the little cockney, who had a 


WILD BLOOD 


277 


very great admiration for Hawkins, had searched him 
out and told him that Raikes and Davenant were cooking 
up some deviltry; and that he, Cockney George, wasn’t 
“hidiot henough to try to tyke the wind hout hof 
’Urricane Wylliams’s syles.” 

No sir. George didn’t have any love for Hurricane 
Williams. But he would he “bloomin’ well blasted” if he 
didn’t have too much sense to try to come anything over 
that fellow. 

So I waited to give Williams what I had heard from 
Hawkins. At least that was the excuse I had given 
myself for remaining so long near Father Rinieri’s door. 
I knew the crew felt miserable and in a mood to think 
they ought to do something, anything; but I really did 
not suppose that they would try to seize the ship. 

What they expected to do with it after they got her 
I don’t know. They had nothing to do but go on board. 
She was ready to sail — only she would have to be towed 
out, and by not less than a half dozen boatfuls of strong 
rowers. 

But Davenant, it appeared, had told them of the 
rifles. Raikes, who alone knew something of ships, had 
talked foolish and gestured aside the difficulties. 

Anyway they went on board and broke out the rifles. 

Davenant had tried to get Dula to go on board too. 
What she told him I do not know. But one of the native 
girls who was present told me, though she understood 
scarcely a word of English, that the hairy-faced man had 
been very angry and tried to talk loud ; and that Dula 
had been quiet and smiled. It was the native girl who 
had screamed when he raised his hand to strike her. 
And he went away. 

Perhaps she had told Davenant much the same that 


278 


WILD BLOOD 


I overheard Father Rinieri tell to Williams. I did not 
hear much, though my ears grew about two inches from 
the strain ; but I did catch the fact that Dula had withheld 
nothing — nothing — from Father Rinieri, and that she was 
more relieved, more at ease with herself, than had ever 
seemed possible to her. But Father Rinieri was not 
himself yet at ease over her. 

However, that has nothing to do with the attempt to 
steal the Sally Martin. By the time I told Williams what 
was planned, the plan had been accomplished. 

We did not know it then. The maneuver had been 
carried out with an effort at secrecy — only there is no 
such thing in a Samoan village. We knew it presently, 
for the village was in a hubbub. 

But Williams said nothing. Not a word. I would 
not believe that myself if I had not stood by him, tagged 
after him, followed him, in eager expectancy to hear him 
snap a few words of orders, then go toward the beach and 
set out with boats for the ship. It seemed as if all the 
village had the same expectancy. 

Williams went to the house Taulemeito had set apart 
for him. I followed. So did the village. The village 
squatted on the grass and in the shadows. I loitered in 
the doorway. 

At last I demanded: 

“Skipper, what you going to do about it?” 

He stirred himself from moody reflections, but they 
had obviously not been on the Sally Martin, for he said 
bruskly, as if unwillingly recalled to something of scant 
importance : 

“Do about it? Go aboard in the morning and put 
those men to work.” 

And he did. 


.WILD BLOOD 


279 


In the most matter-of-fact way, shortly after dawn, 
he was rowed to the ship. Hawkins and I were with 
him in the same boat. The rail bristled with rifles men- 
acingly laid across it. 

Raikes, yelling ah the top of his voice, warned us off. 
Davenant, cool, even a little polite, warned us off. 

“Red-Top,” said Hawkins, pretending to be — and 
perhaps not wholly pretending — a little anxious, “how’s 
anybody goin’ miss me? If I *s skinny like you ” 

He broke off. 

Raikes was crying that another stroke of the paddles 
would bring a volley. 

The natives let the paddles trail and twisted anxious 
faces toward Williams. 

He told them to row on. 

Hawkins took a deep breath like a man about to 
plunge into cold water. 

“Fire !” commanded the high, chill voice of Davenant. 

We could see the expression of amazement on the 
faces above the rail. Not a rifle went off. Some of the 
men looked at their guns as if they had bewitched things 
in their hands, and peered, stupefied, at the unexploded 
shells. 

I laughed, a bit hysterical perhaps, but none the less 
in merriment. I had forgotten that Williams, a capable 
gunsmith, who had often had rifles stolen from him, 
had removed the firing-pins. No wonder he cared very 
little how many men had gone on board and armed 
themselves. 

The crew was flabbergasted, literally. They did not 
understand it. It savored of the devil, of real black 
wizardry. 

What followed from Williams may have seemed to 


28 o 


WILD BLOOD 


them more devilish but without any wizardry in it. 
Whether what Williams soon proceeded to do was 
actually diabolical or was even stinted, inadequate justice, 
I do not know. No other man would have done it, at 
least in just the way that he did. 

He shouted for the sea-ladder to be thrown over, and 
he was up it in a bound. The crew were a little awed 
and somewhat frightened. 

He seemed to ignore their recent pitiable effort at 
mutiny. He turned his back on this man and that care- 
lessly. Some of them still held rifles in their hands and 
could have clubbed him. But when he said to help 
Hawkins up they jumped to obey. 

The Samoans scrambled on deck. 

Upon the poop Davenant stood, absolutely trembling 
— no doubt with nervousness and anger and disappoint- 
ment. 

Williams looked up at him and snapped: 

“Come her e!” 

Every face was upturned toward Davenant, waiting 
for what he would do — summonsed like that. 

“You will please speak to me as to a gentleman !” he 
said. 

His voice got away from him though. It was shriller 
than I had ever heard it. Davenant was shaken through 
and through. 

Williams scarcely moved except to jerk his head to 
one side, and a score of words, not so many perhaps, 
crackled from his mouth. He spoke to the Samoans. I 
caught each word and weakly grasped at Hawkins and 
muttered, “My God!” as the Samoans streaked aft. 

Davenant saw them coming and was alarmed. He 
backed away, but seemed incredulous that they would 


WILD BLOOD 


281 


presume to lay hands on him. They not only did lay 
hands on him, but they grasped him and roughly but not 
abusively hurried him down the ladder and into the 
waist. 

He struggled and cried out, mad with a goaded sense 
of indignity — if not too with fear. He was no longer 
the chill, poised, enigmatic figure, hiding Sicilian passions 
under the shell of an Englishman. He raged venomously. 
Nothing was left him of dignity, of prestige — nothing 
was left him but flesh to feel pain. 

When Williams sent the natives aft he had told them 
to bring Davenant there and bind him to the mast, arms 
encircling it. 

And they did. 

They stripped his coat from him, thrust him against 
the mainmast, pulled his arms around, tied each wrist, 
then brought each of the lines clear around both the mast 
and his body. They tied his legs vise-like too. He was 
helpless as if on a rack. 

Williams took the long knife from his belt, cut an 
end from a half-inch rope and casually flicked the four 
feet of length as if testing it. 

We were a group of amazed, even horrified, men. 
In our minds, at least, Davenant was the owner of the 
ship. But more than that he was a peer of England, a 
lord, the son and heir of a marquis. 

But all that Williams said was, “Stand back,” and we 
gave way. He tossed the line into the air and brought it 
down on Davenant’s shoulder. 

The man screamed. It was not pain. It was outrage. 
The blow did not break the skin of his back, but it cut 
through his heart. 

Incredible as it is to say so, there was not a sign of 


282 


WILD BLOOD 


passion on Williams’s face or in his manner. He was 
tense ; the muscles of his neck stood out like large cords, 
and his eyes had the force of physical strength. But he 
was always tense, always strained, always seemingly at 
the point of fury. 

Blow after blow came down. They stung, but he was 
not putting his weight to them. He was not beating the 
man’s flesh so much as the man’s spirit. 

Davenant’s cries were more like those of a beast than 
a man. His black beard was flecked with foam; his 
mouth white with it. 

And there was no way of knowing whether Williams 
was paying punishment for the shot into his back as he 
slept, or for the late, abortive, senseless attempt to steal 
the ship — or for something else that had aroused his ter- 
rible sense of vengeance. There had been the long, 
patient devoted hours that Dula put in by his bed; and 
there had been the long hours that he sat across from 
Father Rinieri, that night before when I waited in the 
shadows. 

There he had heard her story from the time the 
Sicilian countess came as a bride to England — the whole 
story, with its tragedies and bitterness, told with the 
solemn, dramatic, yet compassionate words of an old, 
wise man who knew the hearts of men and of women. As 
a priest, Father Rinieri had heard what she would not, 
could not, have told to another; but, having told, she 
gave permission, if she had not indeed made the request, 
that her story be given to Hurricane Williams. 

Why a woman, when she loves, feels, and scarcely can 
ever resist, the urge to cast herself humbly, confession- 
ally — whatever her disgrace — at the feet of the man, is 
something belonging to the inscrutable secrets of God 


.WILD BLOOD 283 

Himself. It seemed she had chosen to make her confes- 
sion vicariously. 

And perhaps those blows that fell on Davenant’s 
back were the expression of what Williams felt and 
thought of the cruel, evil way in which Davenant had 
not only kept her fermented with hate against her father 
— kissing the knife with which she was to kill him — 
but had deliberately, malevolently, caused her to learn 
and endure other, and worse things. 

He, a grown man when she was a child. He, the 
brother of her mother. But perhaps, too, there was 
something even more that surged within Williams — some 
response, some answer that would not be stilled, to her 
bold, unashamed love for him. 

But that is all conjecture, no better than shooting at 
a target hidden from view. And I maunder on like an 
old woman at gossip. The fact is that Williams beat 
with a rope-end the body of Sir Francis Davenant for 
three or four minutes; then with two strokes of his 
knife cut him loose. 

“I’ll kill you ! I’ll kill you !” the man shrieked. 

His arms were upraised, his fingers talon-like. The 
rope that had bound him still dangled from his wrists. 
He was weak from fury that had in frantic impotence 
burned up his own strength. He was not unlike a mad- 
man. For the time he was one. All the Sicilian hate and 
mania for revenge of which he was capable was wildly 
flaunted at Williams. Davenant was simply unrecog- 
nizable as the poised, chill, aloof man with the carefully 
combed black beard and disturbing, cynical white smile. 

There was no plumbing Williams’s mind. At least I 
could not. So, whether he really felt that whatever 
Davenant could threaten or do was nothing to notice, or 


284 


WILD BLOOD 


whether his appearance of not even hearing or seeing 
Davenant was deliberately assumed to make the man 
more sufferingly mad, is for those who feel they under- 
stand to guess at. 

He turned from Davenant and spoke to the crew. 
It was their turn. And they jumped to the dirty, hard 
work he ordered, jumped for flush-pots and tar-buckets. 
They moved with a will. One might have thought there 
was a big money-prize dangling before their fingers. 

Davenant saw his chance. He swooped at the deck, 
snatched a rifle and swung it. I shouted; Hawkins 
shouted. The Samoans nearest him lurched forward — * 
too late. 

But Williams did not carry his life in his hand 
without knowing pretty well what went on behind him. 

I believe that he sensed that coming blow through some 
faculty developed by years of strain and watchfulness. 
I believe that, only because I can’t believe that he saw it. 

Anyway he expected it, and all the while must have 
been poised to wheel. He did. His hand shot out and 
up, caught the descending gun at the barrel, wrenched it 
from Davenant’s grip, flung it to the deck — and he 
simply turned his back again. 

Davenant looked at him, just stared in a kind’ of 
stupid daze ; and then — no doubt unconsciously — he made 
the sign of the cross on his breast. Silently he went aft ; 
went to his room. He had not been seen out of it since. 

The Samoans that came on board with Williams 
remained. White men were under native eyes. They 
became the crew. Not those men, or not all of them; 
but others came to take their place. 

Malua came with a half dozen eager to follow 
Williams over the world. Why? He would lead them 


WILD BLOOD 


285 


into trouble. He told, and made them understand, hemp 
or at least prison awaited them if he should be caught. 

They came eagerly. Not for his money or trade or 
for anything that could be bought with money. Why? 
I do not know; and I have often wondered. Perhaps it 
is because men, no matter what their color, follow the 
intrepid ones. Perhaps it was because Williams never 
broke a promise to them. He never broke his promise to 
any man. A simple way to get rid of Williams from the 
high seas would have been through getting him to agree 
to go to Sydney and stick his head through the noose. 
He would have gone. Indeed, he would have gone. 

He made lots of promises and he kept all. He went 
to Sydney once to keep a promise with a brute of an old 
captain — and stole that skipper’s brig under the eyes of 
the forts. And he wrecked it, as he promised he would 
if that thief did not split fairly on the cargo of very fine 
shell that Williams had gathered but could not take into 
port himself. 

Too, he had promised to take Davenant and the 
woman to Dakaru ; and he was taking them. 

I do not think that Dula wanted to go except with 
the ship. I mean that I imagined she did not particularly 
care whether the ship went to Dakaru or Denmark; but 
wherever it went she wanted to go. 

I guessed that she was not eager to go to Dakaru 
because Father Rinieri came on board with her and the 
native woman, Laulai; and he would not have come on 
board to give his parting blessing unless he knew that 
her first urge for going to Dakaru had vanished. He 
remained with us until the ship was towed to the outer 
reefs ; then a boat came alongside for him. 

Dula — I was watching closely — held his hand for 


286 


WILD BLOOD 


seconds at parting. Her face had a strange mildness that 
turned into a smile as she said good-by. What they said 
I do not know, for their talk was in a language of which 
I understood nothing. I helped him down the poop lad- 
der. He walked very slowly. 

“Father,” I said, “if you don’t think it’ll make the 
Lord angry with you, you might mention my name to 
Him. You know, I’m not bad as He must think, since 
He only hears o’ me from other missionaries.” 

He looked at me questioningly, quietly. I was perhaps 
irreverent, but I was not insincere. 

“I’ve been to Dakaru before. And, Father, the crust 
’tween it and hell’s mighty thin!” 

And he answered with something I have often 
thought on, and wondered at his understanding of men, 
of wicked men like myself. “Dan, Dan,” he smiled, 
“I’m afraid I’ll be of most service to you twenty years 
from now — when you remember me.” 

A prophetic benediction. I never saw him again, but 
the memory of him and his wise goodness has not left me. 

Williams was waiting to help him down the sea- 
ladder, and in parting Father Rinieri said something to 
him that I did not understand, and I do not think I have 
ever understood. 

“Captain Williams, I shall always consider it an honor 
to have known you.” 

And I had enough already to think on without cudgel- 
ing my head half the night wondering what Father 
Rinieri could have meant by that. He had seen Williams 
several times during the past years and hardly spoken 
with him. Perhaps Williams, too, had made a confes- 
sional across that lamp-lit table ; or perhaps that wise old 
priest had looked deep through Williams’s silence and 


WILD BLOOD 


287 


understood the man as no one else did. I do not know. 
There are so many things I don’t know, and for one as 
curious as I it’s often fretful and increases sleeplessness. 

One thing was clear, however: Father Rinieri would 
not have considered it an honor a week before to have 
known Williams. 

Dula had Laulai, a Samoan woman, as a companion. 
Laulai could speak a little English. When a girl she 
had married an Englishman and lived with him for ten 
years. He had made money in trade and gone back home 
to spend it on white women. She never saw him again. 

It was Laulai who told me with that free sense of 
criticism that women have — particularly native women 
after they have learned impudence from white husbands 
— that she did not think Williams was such a fine man. 
He had sent Red Shaylor away for Germans to hang 
him. Williams should have killed him outright. 

Had anybody annoyed the wives of Taulemeito and 
lived ? Could any man grab a woman in the shadows that 
loved Malua, and not die? Williams was a great alii, 
brother of the chief; but he was no tausea, no protector. 

Laulai was taking it for granted that I and every one 
else knew of what she was talking. Apparently she was 
talking of many things, or at least two or three. 

I was a fool, she said. Samoan ladies are outspoken. 
Did I not know that the beautiful woman had been 
fearful of the lima toto man — the red, the bloody-handed 
Shaylor? Did I not know that there had been cause? 
She was afraid too of the black-haired man. Why hadn’t 
Williams settled with the one and with the other, too? 
Gave one to the Germans. Whipped the other with a 
little string. Bah! She, Laulai, had heard that he was 
a man. 


288 


WILD BLOOD 


I recalled how Dula had on the ship seemed to sense 
the wisdom of avoiding Red Shaylor, even though the 
alternative was to make a companion of me ; and how 
he had blustered before her and looked at her from a 
distance. Word by word I pried from Laulai that 
Shaylor had been objectionable in the village. 

Though she was sworn to secrecy, the oath was not 
what made it so difficult to get information out of her. 
Woman-like, she wanted to express her opinion instead 
of tell facts. 

It had got so that Dula could not walk out in the 
evening without Shaylor waylaying her. Once he had 
grabbed her, perhaps thinking that Dula was alone, when 
she had walked on from two or three of the girls who 
stopped to gossip with somebody. Dula had made the 
girls promise to say nothing about it, and by some 
miracle they seemed to have done so. 

“Well,” I reflected, “Red Shaylor is gone. Probably 
the Fates are patching up the hole that Williams tore in 
their design when the Roanoke went down. Or maybe 
they really didn’t want him to die then. There is no 
more telling about the Fates than about any other woman 
— they all get a man into trouble.” 

And Dula had me into trouble before we were two 
days out. 

She came to me early one morning when she should 
have been trying to sleep. I was. The wheel was lashed, 
and I was sprawled on the skylight. Malua had the 
deck, and he was in the waist hobnobbing with the watch. 

The details are needless. Dula had not spoken to me 
for two weeks. For one thing I had kept out of her way. 
To be unable to keep her face out of my mind was dis- 
turbing enough without coming closer. 


WILD BLOOD 


289 


She came up as if we had parted but an hour ago, the 
best of friends. I mean that without any explanation at 
all for the chilliness she had radiated toward me, with- 
out any apology or expectation of one, she came and sat 
down on the skylight beside me when I sat up. She had 
a favor to ask, of course. 

She called me Dan. But then all the other women 
in the village did, or tried to — usually said “Lan” ; there 
is no “d” in their language — so perhaps Dula came by it 
unconsciously. But somehow to hear her say it was not, 
for instance, like when Laulai said it. 

“Why have you tried so hard to stay away from me, 
Dan?” she asked. 

I don’t know what I wanted to say. Certainly some- 
thing different from what I did say. What I did say 
was of no importance. Something vague about having 
been working hard, very hard. 

She smiled. It was a real smile with nothing reserved 
in it. She smiled receptively, as if any explanation would 
have done as well. I doubt if she heard what I said, for 
she asked at once with a little stir of eagerness if I had 
told Williams how Tom Gibson had met death. 

“After being bribed to silence with so much jewelry ?” 
I was a little hurt. I don’t know what by; but I felt 
hurt anyway. 

“Please do/’ she said quickly, leaning toward me. 

Her dark face with its strange irregular lines was 
close to mine. Her thick hair was matted down and 
covered her ears. Her eyes were earnest, pleading. 

“You will, won’t you?” she added. 

“You tell him. He’ll be interested. Very. Williams 
likes to hear things.” 

“Please do, Dan.” 


290 


WILD BLOOD 


“Father Rinieri — didn’t you tell him?” 

“Dan — ” there was a little note of pleading impa- 
tience. “Father Rinieri is a priest.” 

“And Williams is a pirate. It won’t shock him 
either.” 

“Please, I am in earnest! I want him to know. I 
can’t tell him. Don’t you see I can’t ?” 

“Why didn’t Father Rinieri tell him?” 

“Repeat a confession!’ she exclaimed with a low 
overtone of horror. 

I said that I had heard him tell. 

“You listened !” Dula hardened a little in an instant. 

It seemed that I was guilty of something terrible. 
But I was stubbornly shameless; so much so that she 
seemed a little confused. Anyway she explained that 
what Father Rinieri had had confided with him was 
something separate and apart from the confessional. 
That being a differentiation I did not understand or 
care anything about. 

The point was that she wanted Williams to know it 
was not only her knife but her hand that had struck 
poor inoffensive Gibson. She had thought it over. She 
now wanted him to know. 

Something internally goaded me, and I said: 

“You want Williams to know you did it for him. 
Your story told by even Father Rinieri hasn’t moved 
him as you thought it would. Is that it? You love him, 
don’t you? You went in a passion over that word love 
once, but it’s different now — isn’t it? You were afraid 
he would be horrified if he knew about Gibson, so you 
wouldn’t let him know that. Now you want me to tell 
him. If he is horrified you can say I lied !” 


WILD BLOOD 


291 


She struck me across the face with her palm. She 
said : “You are a beast !” 

And she left me. 

However, I did what she wanted. I did tell Williams 
everything — down to the palm-blow in the face. 

He looked at me hard with anger gathering in his 
eyes. I had known that all the time and said nothing? 
He thought that I was his friend, not the confederate of 
any strange woman that happened to be on his ship. 

“But she did it for you!” I cried, involuntarily 
pleading for her in an uneasy effort to justify myself. 

“And you did it for her!” he said. “You love her, 
McGuire. I knew that from the first. The thing called 
love makes strange fools.” 

I denied it with might and main, with outpoured 
oaths and hard-flung gestures. 

He said something about an innocent man never over- 
emphasizing his plea. 

“Good God!” I cried; “then do you love her?” 

A thin crooked smile hung itself on his lips. Motion- 
less, he looked at me, fire in his eyes, and a cryptic, 
twisted line on his hard mouth. 

I could say nothing more; and he gave no answer 
except what I chose to read in the anger of his eyes 
and the crooked smile that may have been sardonic or 
may have been confessional. I do not know. 

So on we went day after day, as miserable a boat- 
load as ever ruffled the sea. I wished with embittered 
futility that I had at no time kept anything back from 
Williams. Hawkins became my solace and companion, 
though there were times when I hated his big fat belly- 
ing body, his heavy rumbling voice. But I talked with 
him ; told him much — and much I didn’t tell. 


292 


WILD BLOOD 


“Cheer-up, Red-Top ; cheer-o. We’re rollin’ down to 
Dakaru. Lots o’ drink there, old mate. An’ eat — oh! 
What’s that you said oncet? Blood’ll be splashed to the 
moon. Funny, wasn’t it? Carp Taylor’s the man this 
Lord Davenant o’ ourn hired to take ’im to Dakaru. 

“Taylor split my head an’ walloped me ’cross the 
hatch. Beat up an unconscious fellow — me ! An’ Daven- 
ant got his floggin’ wide awake. Raulson says he’s 
never seen his face — just shoves the tucker through the 
door. Sometimes it ain’t touched 

“Say, little Raikes is scared frozen. Says he was 
drunk at Lelela — didn’t want to steal the ship. He ain’t 
through pesterin’ me yet t’ b’lieve he done me a favor 
that day on the fo’c’s’le. Maybe he did, Red-Top. 
Maybe he did. 

“The whole pack o’ the men are scared as Raikes that 
Williams’ll turn the natives loose on ’em. ’Cept Cock- 
ney George. He keeps at me to know ’ow ’e ’ll be 
rewarded. 

“Say, I glimpsed a native sharpenin’ Williams’s knife. 
What does that mean, Red-Top?” 

I told him for heaven’s sake to stop that interminable 
chatter; that his tongue was long as a bowsprit, his 
mouth empty as a rat-eaten cheese. All that nonsense 
when there were important things to worry about! The 
world had shifted from its foundation, and everything 
was topsyturvy. 

What did I mean? Listen: That woman was a 
trouble-maker. She was after Williams. No, it would 
have been simple if she had merely wanted to kill him. 
But she wanted him to love her — and she looked just 
like the woman that had had him hanged. And he had 
loved that one. 


l WILD blood 


293 


Ought to make him hate this one? Of course it 
ought. But what man does as he should? 

“And how many women could you hate that looked 
like the first one you loved? And she hasn’t worn that 
black coat with red lining — not since Williams was shot. 
What has that to do with it? Lots — only I don’t know 
in what way. She is like that ; black on the surface 
and crimsonly passionate inside of her. She has flung 
herself at him, Hawkins. Flung herself at him! And 
I’m not sure she hasn’t brought him to her moorings! 
Think of it, man ! She came out here to kill her father — 
her own blood-father. And love was stronger than the 
hate that was put into her in the nursery. She thinks it 
was the priest that moved her — but it was Williams. It 
was Williams, I tell you. And look at him, Hawkins. 
He’s not like you and me. He hates the very sight of 
drunken beach-combers like you and me. But he’d wade 
through blood neck-deep to pull either one of us out — 
because he thinks it would be right. Right? Right! 
What is right? Maybe it tells in some of those queer 
books he reads. 

“Do you know why he’s coming here? It’s to give 
back this ship to Grahame for the one we stole when we 
were here before ! Some more of that damn right of his. 
The same as when he wrecks blackbirders and sets 
natives loose — likely enough to murder the next white 
men that come! He does that; and yet — have you ever 
seen him kill? Pouf — Pouf — Pouf with knife or gun. 
And never a quiver — no more than if he was spearing 
fish! Aye, he’s been hanged himself, so probably he 
knows how little life is worth. No, you fool, I’m not 
drunk! I’m sober — that’s what’s the matter with me!” 

.... And the next morning we raised Dakaru. 


CHAPTER XIV 


FEVER, RUM AND A BITTER TALE 

W E WERE sighted from afar by the people at 
Dakaru, and a boat met us at the mouth of the 
narrow little bay entrance. 

A Portuguese was in the boat with many natives, 
velvety black fellows from Western Melanesia. 

He called out ill-temperedly in broken English to 
know who we were and what we wanted. From our 
stern through cupped hands a quick loud roar of 
Hawkins : 

“Hurricane Williams I” 

The Portuguese stayed not to learn more. That boat 
started off for the shore, and we could hear him cursing 
the rowers for their slowness. 

We came in almost motionless. The wind was dead. 
We rode with the tide and scarcely drifted. The sails 
were down. 

So close inside as almost to block the entrance — but 
not actually to block it — we let go an anchor. 

There were two ships in the harbor besides the Sally 
Martin. One was a little clipper-like craft moored off 
the landing. That was Grahame’s. The other was a tub 
of a brig. With almost inaudible surprise Hawkins 
identified her as the Fijian Maid — Carp Taylor’s ship. 

The anchor was hardly down before a small boat hit 
the water; Malua and a half dozen natives jumped down 
294 


JVILD BLOOD 295 


into it, and Williams shoved a piece of folded paper into 
*my hand. 

“For Grahame,” he said, and pointed across the bay. 

All that hurry left me dazed. I was into the boat and 
being rowed off before I was hardly aware of having 
started. 

Dakaru had been roughly sketched in lines of beauty 
by the Great Landscape Gardener that laid out His many 
Edens in the South Seas; and for years Grahame had 
been using up ship-loads of blacks in improvements. He 
did not run his plantation for money, but threw the 
profits away. Isolation suited him better than com- 
merce. 

He had a lugger or two on the other end of the island, 
and he raked the bottom of a large virgin atoll for pearl 
and shell. This paid his expenses and gave him the 
name of being rich. A queer life, a queer character; 
but something centrifugal in the northern, civilized lands 
seemed to have thrown out the men of queer, grotesque 
minds and purposes, and they landed in those seas. 

The paper Williams gave me was not sealed. So I 
read it. I would probably have read it any way. 

Grahame : 

I have brought you back a ship. I shall have to 
take her out again to get away. Put your own crew on 
her and they can bring her back. She is yours. 

I have two passengers for Dakaru, but one may not 
want to stay. You may not want the other to leave. 
Let me have an answer at once. Williams. 

I reflected on that note. I almost grinned at the irony 
of Williams satisfying his curious sense of honor by 
returning at Dakaru a ship he had stolen at Turkee. 


296 


WILD BLOOD 


But it had ever been so. He could not escape such 
irony, and probably saw it, felt it, much as any man. 
Good people have a hard enough time doing what they 
think is right; but an outlaw — he rides the horns of 
dilemma. 

“Two passengers.” The one that might not want 
to stay was surely the woman. “You may not want the 
other to leave” ; that was sardonic. 

Had Williams, so strangely faithful to his promise, 
brought Davenant all the way to Dakaru expecting 
Grahame would kill him? Perhaps there was at once 
punishment for Davenant and a favor to Grahame in 
that. Williams had a grim sense of justice. 

The boat swept on rapidly toward the landing. 
Many people were waiting there. Some had rifles in 
their hands. Overhead gulls swirled, crying harshly. 
I heard the deep bay of a dog, and saw two among the 
group on the beach. 

Malua shouted. The rowers lifted their oars. The 
boat streaked rapidly broadside to the landing, and the 
boys grappled with its coral wall, bringing blood through 
the scratches on their hands but holding the boat. 

I got out slowly, going up the slimy landing-steps, 
and faced a squat little black Portuguese armed to his 
chin, and a whip in his hand. lie was not alone. Two 
other dirty-looking Portuguese were with him. Their 
clothes were clean enough but they looked dirty anyway. 

“ , w’at you want?” he demanded overbearingly. 

I glanced searchingly along the landing. A white 
man was there, but it wasn’t Grahame. This man had a 
beard ; and Grahame was taller than he. Black boys and 
women were there, huddled curiously, sensing in their 
marvelous way that trouble was in the air. 


| 


WILD BLOOD 


297 


“Grahame,” I said. 

“No see him.” 

The dirty squat man was trying to be mean in the 
way he spoke. 

I started forward. He blocked my way. 

My hair isn’t red for nothing, and I never was likely 
to be intimidated in daylight by Portuguese. At night 
when any shadow may hold a knife — that is different. 
Besides Williams through his glasses was probably 
watching me. 

I pointed to the boat where Malua and the boys stood 
with heads and shoulders above the landing, watching. 

“Get out of my way. Get out, or those Samoans’ll 
come up here. And there won’t be enough Portuguese 
left to show your own blacks where to bury you !” 

They gave way ; whether because of my valiant words, 
or because the heavy hand of the white man who had 
approached seemed about to jerk the other two aside, I 
do not know. He roughly pushed one out of his way 
and faced me. 

“What d’you want?” he said unpleasantly. 

“I’ve a message for Grahame,” I told him and made 
a movement with the hand that held the folded paper. 

“Give it to me,” and he reached for it. 

“Who are you?” 

“What does that ” — he referred to Williams with 

the use of many words that must be left to the imagina- 
tion, though the imagination of most people will be 

unable to supply them — “ want here?” Adding: 

“I’m Carpenter Taylor. He’d better go about with the 
tide an’ get to hell out of here. What’d you want with 
Grahame ?” 

“Supposin’ you go out and tell him all that. I’m not 


298 


WILD BLOOD 


much good at delivering messages — unless they’re 
written. Like this one. Where is Grahame ?” 

“Give it to me. Grahame’s a sick man.” 

Again he reached for the paper. 

He was a broad-shouldered, short-legged man, with 
a short, tobacco-smeared beard and a thick nose. 

“Listen to my words of wisdom, Captain Taylor. 
Unless I put this in Grahame’s own hands Hurricane 
Williams himself’ll come ashore an’ do it. And he 
hasn’t changed much since you last met him — an’ put 
your blacks back on the beach !” 

There was a sting in that phrase, and it jabbed Carp 
Taylor where he had a sore memory. 

He wished that dog Williams would come ashore. 
He’d find it different at Dakaru now. The damn thief. 
Just let him set his feet on the sands 

“I think I can deliver that message all right — but this 
one first.” 

“Are you fellows here after trouble?” he demanded, 
his thick arms bristling from his sides. 

He probably felt the security of numbers, the Portu- 
guese, the dogs, the high wall, fort-like, about the house ; 
and with those odds on his side he was ready to fight. 

“You’re talking to the wrong man, Captain. You 
want to go out and speak to Williams. He can tell you. 
I can’t.” 

More words equally futile and uninteresting passed 
between us ; then he decided to lead me to Grahame. 

We went up the white sanded roadway lined with 
slabs of coral and along the coral were planted roses. 
Half a ship-load, so I had heard, of clay soil had been 
brought up from Australia to bed roses. The grilled 


WILD BLOOD 


299 


iron gates of the eight-foot wall were closed but 
unlocked. 

On every side were the marks of long, hard work 
from human hands. Grahame had used up his blacks 
much as the old kings of Egypt had used up their 
fellaheen . Inside of the walls were masses of flowers 
and trees and stretches of green lawn: jasmine, hibiscus, 
trumpet-flowers, acacia, and great flame-tipped poin- 
settia, the sweet wild-orange and enormous shrubs 
sagging under the weight of bright-winged blossoms. 
Cockatoos fluttered drowsily in the shadows of fig-trees 
and complained irritably. 

The house — a mile from the beach — was a low, great- 
flanked structure based with coral mortar and breasted 
with vines that reached over and festooned the low broad 
veranda, burying it in cool shadows. The big wide door 
of carved oak had been sent out from England. 

“Fever,” Carp Taylor had explained, significantly 
jerking a thick hand toward the house, and adding: 

“Some men can’t drink — in this climate.” 

As we trudged along, the sand grinding under his 
shoes — I was barefoot — he spoke of what was uppermost 
in his mind: 

“What d’you fellows want here anyhow?” 

And again without waiting for an answer he added: 

“I’m in charge here — since Grahame’s sick.” 

He looked at me ; and I thought there was something 
queer in his eyes, something like hope, great expectations 
lurking there a little furtively. Well, it was a rich planta- 
tion ; and if Grahame died who would get it ? The first 
man to claim it. 

There was the girl, the bright-haired little angel that 
had got down from the Florentine wall where some old 


3°o 


WILD BLOOD 


Italian artist had ’prisoned her, and wandered to Dakaru 
— but what was a girl-child between a man and his loot? 

He stopped on the veranda with his hand at the door 
to come back to his question. He asked it with a strained 
effort at friendliness, confidence-inviting, as if he had 
been thinking things over and did not want trouble. 
Perhaps he would seek for the soft answer to turn away 
Williams. What did we want, anyway? 

I answered with reasonable truth in saying I did not 
know, that I sailed with Hurricane Williams and inquired 
not at all into his business. 

He stared at me for a moment or two. His eyes were 
dull, but a cunning light was at the back of them. There 
was something thick and clod-like about the man, even 
to his eyes, and tongue too. He took a nubbin of tobacco 
from his trousers pocket, bit into it, worked his jaws and 
said: 

“Grahame’s queer. I’m warnin’ you. Fever — an’ 

rum.” 

We went in. 

The door swung back noiselessly. Though it was 
dark and cool inside, and for a few seconds I could 
scarcely distinguish anything, I had the impression of 
forms vanishing. There was certainly the soft plop-plop 
of light bare feet in the distance. 

“Black girls,” said Carp Ta>dor. “Grahame coddles 
’em. Kills his natives out there — but here ” 

He laughed low, coarsely. 

“Don’t want that girl o’ his’n to know he’d hurt a 
fly!” 

He laughed again. It was if not humorous at least 
queer. 

As I rapidly grew used to the dimness I saw that 


WILD BLOOD 


301 


we had entered not into a room but into a wide hall with 
great open doors on either side. On the right I caught a 
glimpse of rows of books and chairs. We passed on down 
the mat-covered hall. 

Taylor opened a door. A native woman, having 
heard us, was at the same time opening the door. 

Grahame lay on a great wide bed. Everything was 
spacious in that house. By the bed was a teak table. 
Its three legs in the form of slender dragons’ bodies ran 
to above the edge of the table and became little black 
savage monsters, watchfully leering about the room. 

On the table was a glass, a bowl of sugar, a few 
limes, sliced, and a bottle of rum. Wretched medicine 
for fever. 

Grahame raised himself on his pillows and stared 
forward. He was thin, wasted. His long mustache 
was now scarcely more than streaked with black and 
drooped far below his chin dispiritedly. His hair had 
thinned and was long and white. 

The native woman effacedly, patiently, stood to one 
side of the large open window, through which I caught 
a glimpse of a peering child. He saw me look at him 
and at once began to pull a long rope, and a breath of air 
stirred down from the ceiling from a punkah . 

On the other side of the bed from me sat the girl, the 
girl of the bright hair, her elbows on the bed and her 
slender hands almost invisible against the covering of 
pure white tappa cloth. A large pearl, like a miniature 
harvest moon in a faint mist, was on a finger. 

But she was a girl no longer ; the tropics rush flowers, 
fruit and maidens to their ripening overnight ; and men 
to seed. She was yet sweet and innocent and inexpres- 
sibly weary, pale, and under her eyes were faint bluish 


3°2 


WILD BLOOD 


rings. She recognized me at once, and fright coiled in 
her purple eyes. 

Grahame, though weak, spoke savagely, hoarsely. 

“You come from that pig-born Williams ?” 

The English think they know a viler phrase than 
“pig-born”; but the South Seas know none. Perhaps 
with vicious subtlety he took the lowest word of the 
Samoans, among whom Williams was the brother of a 
chief. 

“I have a message,” I said, and held out my hand. 

He looked at the paper, then at me, and took it with' 
an air of distrustfulness. His hands were nervous and 
shook. His fingers fumbled in opening it. 

With difficulty he read ; it took him a long time. So 
long in fact that he did not notice Carp Taylor, who had 
leaned downward and read too. When Grahame looked 
up toward me in surprise, and seeing Taylor near, 
turned the paper face down on the bed coverlet, he con- 
cealed nothing. 

“Father, may I?” the girl asked, her thin, almost 
transparent, fingers moving toward the paper. 

“No, no,” he said a little uneasily, pulling it away. 

Silence, except for the slow and scarcely audible 
weaving of the punkah overhead and the faint crackle of 
the paper as Grahame with something like an air of fur- 
tiveness again read the message. 

“Go out, go out,” he said abruptly, nervously. “All of 
you go out. Taylor, get out. Eunice, I want to talk to 
him.” 

He glanced again at the paper. 

“Pm all right.” 

Eunice stood up slowly and gave me a long steady 


WILD BLOOD 


303 


look of reproach. She spoke, and though her voice 
expressed an unforgiving bitterness it was soft and sweet. 

“My father has never been well since that day,” she 
said. Then impulsively : “Oh, what do you terrible men 
want now? Come, Nolopu.” 

Carp Taylor said something about himself being there 
to look after her and her father. But she seemed not 
to hear him; more than that, seemed to ignore him, 
though he came close to her. 

I glanced scrutinizingly at the native woman. 
Nolopu was a Samoan name. She was a Samoan too. 
She did not look toward me as she went out after Taylor 
and the girl. 

Two hours later there were three emptied bottles of 
rum on the table of the dragons, and I was cold, ooldlv 
sober. My hands shook a little and my heart shivered. 

Grahame — Grahame was drunk, drunk and dying. 
He hated death terribly, fought against it, vowed he 
could and would rise and walk to-morrow ; that he could 
do so that day, that hour. He needed the rest, he said ; 
but it didn’t hurt him to talk. 

He said death was months off. He hated it; but he 
was not afraid — except for the girl, for Eunice. Eunice 
had been the name of her mother. 

It wasn’t the knife that had gone into his shoulder. 
Damn Hurricane Williams — but drink to him again! It 

was his liver; too much rum. And his heart — the 

thing wabbled and sometimes tried to stop. 

The first thing he had demanded as the door closed 
was to know who were those people that we had brought 
to Dakaru. I told him. His curses were frightful. They 
fell on the head of Francis Davenant. 

It was a long time before he mentioned Dula, his 


3°4 


WILD BLOOD 


daughter; then he asked what she was like, what she 
looked like. I can not say there was tenderness or any- 
thing akin to it, but there was no bitterness. He did not 
curse her. 

“Williams has brought him here to hound mer he 
had cried with uplifted, clenched fists. 

I told of the shot into Williams's back; of Davenant 
lashed to the mast and beaten. Grahame laughed 
wickedly. He knew how that had hurt, gone deep, eaten 
in like the scalding of molten iron. 

Then he had thrust the bottle toward me, saying : 

“Drink!” 

Grahame’s thoughts went helter-skelter ; but his 
tongue never stopped. When he seemed to be taking 
thought of what next to say his tongue mechanically 
cursed, and himself not least. 

Such a life as had seemed ahead of him in his youth ! 
He had been one of the youngest captains in the British 
Army — cavalry — and had won medals in India. 

That sister of the hell-hound Davenant — he had lost 
his head over her. She was a woman that made a man’s 
flesh burn! Fierce, passionate, jealous — and grew to 
hate him. 

What could a young fool do with a woman like that, 
who believed her brother’s lies — when he didn’t even 
know there had been lies? Thought it was a wild 
woman’s jealousy. Wondered in his bed if he would 
awaken with a knife in his throat. Of course he floated 
his troubles in wine ! 

Davenant, cold, poised, insistently friendly, idled 
neither day nor night from the work of ruining him. 
[The cause? God knew, perhaps. 

There were clubs and messes where not even the son 


.WILD BLOOD 


305 


of a marquis was welcome. Grahame would not try to 
take him into them. 

Rumors of a kind never told except in whispers went 
from mouth to mouth with his name. Once a friend 
pointedly insulted Davenant, and Grahame kept the 
friend still. 

Nor could he shake Davenant off. The wife loved 
the brother. The door was always open. Davenant, 
cold, inscrutable, seemed friendly. There was no shaking 
him off. 

Fellow officers in Captain Grahame’s quarters for an 
evening’s sport found themselves playing with marked 
cards. There was nothing to do but what he did. 
Resign. 

He thought his wild wife had revenged her jealousies. 
A bitter quarrel — and Davenant gave him sympathy. 
Grahame, himself slipping out of his caste and class, 
his own name going about in whispers, began to lean on 
Davenant’s friendship. 

All friends and family shunned him except a cousin, 
Eunice, an angel. They had loved, but cousins may not 
marry. It is wicked. He had forgotten the love a 
little; let it bury itself. She had kept it burning like a 
secret flame. 

Then came a murder. The friend who had insulted 
Davenant, who had been one of those about the table of 
the marked cards, when by evil fortune Grahame was 
winning, was dead. Shot in the back. 

Davenant had said : 

“Looks bad, Grahame. If you were going to do a 
thing like that you shouldn’t have talked about it before^ 
hand, drunk.” 

Grahame had protested, shaken, fearful. He had 


3o6 


WILD BLOOD 


loved that friend, and he began to feel the Satanic 
patience and deadliness of Davenant. 

“Yes, you did,” Davenant answered with his slow, 
cold, white smile. “I could swear to it myself. My sister 
would too — to punish you for what she thinks is worse 
guilt. Other women.” 

Grahame had none in all the world to listen to him 
but the cousin who loved him. He snatched desperately 
right and left for what funds he could get. He took 
money that belonged to his wife and to Davenant, too. 
But he left property. 

Fear of Davenant had got into his blood. He feared 
nothing else. Not even God. The implacable patience 
of the man was terrifying. Grahame had cursed himself 
for cowardice, but he had trembled in the belief that 
Davenant would search him out. 

Much wandering found Dakaru. Luck gave him 
pearls. Nothing could be more remote, more secure ; but 
he needed labor, and he had had blackbirders, who occa- 
sionally touched there in combing the seas, bring blacks. 

A daughter was born again unto him. It was as if 
Heaven were to give him a whole new start, and an Eden 
too. They were happy and treated the blacks like 
children. He got Samoan girls to watch over his 
daughter, the kindest and most intelligent of natives. 

Then the terrible thing happened — the cannibal feast. 
He had been at the atoll for pearls. The Samoans had 
hidden in the hills with the baby. 

Every black on the island, male and female, had been 
butchered, hunted down. He and his Portuguese did it. 
But he had to have blacks to work the island. He got 
others, and bloodhounds, and more Portuguese. 

“The crudest of all whites as a race,” he said. 


[WILD BLOOD 


3°7 


He stayed on Dakaru, for tKere was no place to go. 
[Besides there was pleasure in killing blacks where they 
had killed her. He fed them — for food went to waste; 
he housed them — for he wanted their strength to fail 
under burdens, not under disease ; and he built his planta- 
tion, his gardens, his house and his roads and his walls, 
as a monument to Eunice his wife, as an inheritance for 
[Eunice her daughter. 

He had to traffic with England, for no luxuries were 
to be denied her; and somehow Davenant had heard of 
and reached Carp Taylor, who carried supplies and orders 
for Dakaru. With pearls and threats Grahame had made 
Carp Taylor refuse to meet Davenant as promised. 

Grahame was no longer afraid of Davenant. He 
feared nothing except what would happen to Eunice 
when he died. There was nobody on earth to trust. 

Look at Carp Taylor, now. The beast, with his eyes 
looking forward across Grahame’s grave. 

Rum was killing him. But rum he had to Have. 
Memories would kill him quicker if he didn’t have it. 

And Carp Taylor was all that would stand between 
her and the Portuguese. 

Not one man on earth to trust. Nor one whose oath 
was better than his lies. 

A British man-o’-war had been in a year ago, and 
Grahame had fruitlessly begged the captain to raise the 
flag on the island. Grahame had not been as sick then. 
He thought the end of life was years ahead. 

He ought to have sent her to England. To have gone 
himself. Dared everybody — been hanged as a murderer 
if necessary. 

But she believed him a great and noble man. When 


3 o8 


WILD BLOOD 


shots were fired and lagging blacks fell she thought pigs 
or chickens were being killed. 

She was all he had in life; and in eternity God 
wouldn’t so much as let him see her from hell; he had 
kept her so innocent, so like her mother, that she would 
be too high in Heaven for his eyes to reach. 

Hurricane Williams — the nigger-lover ; Grahame had 
abhorred his name for years. Officers from wandering 
gunboats spoke it. Blackbirders told of his hideous 
friendship with cannibal blacks. Even stray whalers had 
heard it and cursed it ; for blacks armed with rifles that 
were said to have come from Williams fought them off 
at times when they landed for water, food — and women. 

However, the British captain there about a year ago — 
who did not dare raise his flag because at that time the 
politicians in the Colonial Office did not like the study of 
geography, and evaded it by calling themselves anti-im- 
perialists — seemed to know more about Williams than 
other people had known. Was it true — Grahame 
demanded of me, that he had been hanged — and through 
the lies of a fierce, beautiful, dark woman? Actually 
hanged? Cut down unconscious by an impatient doctor 
late to his dinner-party ? Saved by convicts who rplled a 
dummy in quicklime and buried it? 

That captain had said: 

“He’s a dangerous man, you know. He kills quick. 
I’ve poked about among the trustworthiest reports of the 
blighter. Doesn’t seem to care how or how many if they 
get him going. But take it long and short he doesn’t 
seem to have potted many that the queen wouldn’t have 
paid the hangman for the crackin’ of their necks — if the 
Crown had caught ’em with all the evidence. And a lot 
o’ them have been natives.” 


[WILD BLOOD 


309 


And to me Grahame said a little incredulous, mysti- 
fied, unready to believe what the facts suggested, but 
putting them straight: 

“When he left Dakaru that time there were two dead 
cannibals inside the wall — where it’s always death for 
any of those blacks to be. Eunice and the women saw 
him kill them. He tried to kill me — but he — You were 
with him, and did he do it to protect her?” 

I nodded. 

“Then, curse him, we’ll drink to his health. Get 
out another bottle from that chest. 

“Carp Taylor and all of ’em think I’m rich. But 
it’s all in that chest. Rum ! And in the atoll — pearls, 
unfished.” 

He laughed sardonically in a kind of malicious glee. 
More soberly: 

“That ring that Eunice wears — it was one of the first 
I found. Her mother used to wear it. I’d cut my heart 
out and sell it first.” 

I brought a third bottle from the chest. His hand 
shook so that more was spilled, far more, than went into 
the glass; and the glass was filled. 

His wavering hand held the bottle out to me. I 
took it. He picked up the glass and from his trembling 
the liquor fell in little unheeded splashes over the brim, 
wetting the white coverlet, staining it more and more 
with deep brown spots. 

“Here’s to ” 

He stopped, put down the glass awkwardly, drunk- 
enly, and fumbled about for the paper Williams had sent. 
He found it, laboriously opened it. His fingers could 
not hold it steady; and the lines would not remain in 
place before his eyes. He thrust it at me. 


3io 


WILD BLOOD 


“The first line — read that. Then we’ll drink. Curse 
him, he’s a man! I don’t want his ship. He can have 
it. He can have all the ships I’ve got. The yacht, the 
luggers, all of ’em. He kills niggers, too, does he ? Does 

he? Damn you, answer me! Then we’ll drink to 

’im ! Curse him, he writes like a gentleman. Is he ? Is 
he? 

“Oh, these rotten tropics! Doesn’t he drink? Then 
we’ll drink to ’im more ’an ever !” 

Grahame was more than drunk. I was more than 
sober. I was cold. There was the mark on him of one 
toward whom Death’s invisible hand is outstretched. 

The name of Davenant had smitten his memories- 
given tinder to his fever ; and the rum had unleashed the 
cords of his tongue. Time had struck two hours from 
the life of each of us. 

Then the door opened. Carp Taylor, followed by 
Davenant, Dula, Eunice, came in. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE woman who hated men speaks of love 
ARP TAYLOR had sent a false message to Williams 



and had had the two passengers, who he guessed 
were Francis Davenant and his “daughter” — known to 
him as relatives whom Grahame, jealous of his isolation, 
did not want to see — brought ashore. 

Perhaps Carp Taylor, with an itch for deviltry, didn’t 
himself quite know what he was up to; though in also 
sending word to Williams that I was helping pick a 
crew that would go out with the ship and bring her 
back, there was probably at the back of his head the 
vague idea of rushing natives and Portuguese on board 
in the guise of a crew and seizing her, evening an old 
score, getting reward-money and renown, and also control 
of a valuable schooner. 

There appears to be a kind of masonry among the 
devil’s disciples that plunges them even when strangers 
into sullen fellowship and plot-weaving. When Daven- 
ant stepped on the landing he shook a fist at the Sally 
Martin and cursed Williams. In some moments then of 
quick speech, questions and answers, Davenant and Carp 
Taylor were in agreement as to what should happen to 
Williams. 

Davenant’s fury at him seemed to have displaced, for 
the time at least, revenge toward Grahame, whom he had 
sought half-way across the world. 


3 11 


3 12 


WILD BLOOD ' 


As they came into the room I tried to stand up, with 
my face twisted back over my shoulder. My knees were 
limber and my feet heavy — from sitting so long, probably. 

I threw out a steadying, groping hand and touched 
Davenant. He did not notice; he, almost madly, was 
already talking. But I jerked my hand back with the 
shuddering impression of having touched something 
snaky. Gripping the foot of Grahame’s bed, I stood 
there, holding on tightly. 

Dula and Eunice — distinct as figures from a tableau 
of Night and Day — were side by side. Eunice trembled 
and on her face was a frozen look of fearfulness. She 
was frightened but baffled too. 

The evil that the world has in it was abruptly appear- 
ing before her. She did not understand, but she was 
afraid ; also dazed by many surprising things. She held 
on to Dula’s arm, and Dula’s fingers were pressed reas- 
suringly against the fragile hand that held her arm. 

Eunice had met them at the door. Carp Taylor had 
tried to make some kind of introduction — something 
awkward about being “relatives” — and Dula had glided 
forward with hands out, saying: 

“I am your sister!” 

Laulai had at first thought Eunice was a woman with 
no tongue, one that couldn’t speak. She was so silent. 

Eunice did not believe it, of course ; or more likely did 
not think of disbelieving it, of taking it literally. Her 
utter loneliness of life would have made any woman of 
her own race endearingly welcome and given her the 
dazed impression of the miraculous. 

It would probably never have occurred to her to 
follow the men into her father’s room. But she followed 
Dula. She knew, perhaps psychically, that Dula was 


WILD BLOOD 


313 


strong and wise. For all of the forced blooming of the 
tropics, Eunice was little more than a child, and a handful 
of dirt spread out on an oceanic mountain had been her 
world. When a woman is utterly innocent she has little 
left besides the urge to be loved, guided, sheltered, and 
an eagerness to trust. 

Dula stood there alert, tense, her eyes on Grahame in 
a fascinated sort of way — her whole being concentrated 
in a kind of agonized suspense as to what he would reply 
to Davenant. And as I remember her through the shift- 
ing haze that dings to that room her attitude was not 
that of some one awaiting a decision so much as that of 
some one withholding judgment. 

Davenant, as he came into the room, with a sweep 
of his hand had seemed to discard all the hate between 
him and Grahame. At least that was his offer in words 
as he cut interruptingly through the awkward effort at 
some kind of explanation begun by Carp Taylor. 

Williams was to be caught and Davenant was to be 
given the right to kill him. Those were the terms of the 
peace offer flung impassionedly at Grahame. Davenant 
took it for granted that Grahame was not only wishful on 
any terms of wiping out the grudge between them, but 
that he would be eager to end Hurricane Williams. 

The shock of surprise, that put a quite stupid expres- 
sion on Grahame's face when the door had opened, 
rapidly gave way to a look of absorbed interest. Then 
his two thin, wasted hands stroked the drooping mus- 
tache, pulling the ends back along the lines of his prom- 
inent jawbone. 

He grinned. He laughed. For the length of such a 
moment as a gambler feels while the dice are falling, I 


3H 


WILD BLOOD 


could not tell what that laugh meant — whether pleased 
acquiescence or pleased scorn. 

A second later and there was no doubt. He was 
jeering at Davenant. 

Grahame spoke. His voice was hoarse and strained 
and evilly gleeful. Williams? Williams was the one 
man left on earth to have his friendship. 

I glanced toward the women. Eunice’s face was 
covered with distress ; nothing could have seemed further 
from reason than what she was hearing her father say. 

Dula leaned forward. Her dark face was aglow. 
Incredulous, amazed, she pressed the closed fingers of 
one hand to her cheek as if to grip back her delight. 

Oh-ho-ho! Did Davenant’s flesh still hurt from the 
bitter caress of hemp? To be beaten like a dog — and be 
the son of a marquis ! 

Then came curses and a tumult of broken sentences, 
scarcely connected phrases, as Grahame told of the 
things he could not forget — things much the fresher in 
his mind for having just rehearsed them to me. 

Sick, drunk, feverish, he was burning up the very 
marrow of his bones to say what he wanted to say in that 
half-hour’s supreme revenge on an old enemy that came 
with a truce on his lips. Strange; but though drunk, 
feverish, there was a cold sardonic strain in Grahame’s 
fury, due no doubt to the exalted sense of triumph. 

“Grahame,” Davenant had said excitedly, “we cross 
our score from the books — by-goneS wiped out — I 
want the life of that Williams — These hands shall drip 
with his blood — ! You know, Winwood Grahame, when 
I want a man’s life not God himself can keep me from 
getting it ! Shall I let that dog live ? 

“Get him on shore, Grahame. Get him on shore. 


WILD BLOOD 


315 


After all, we ought to be friends, Grahame. You and 

I And I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t rest, I can’t 

die, till that dog has been drowned in his own blood at 
my feet ! Grahame, I swear to forget everything 
between us 

“After all, we’re of a family, Winwood. You never 

liked me, and I hated you for that But I’ll go back 

to London. Don’t you see all I want in this life or in the 
next is the whine for pity in my ears from that dog, as 
he dies?” 

It was then Grahame had laughed and begun to speak. 
And before he had finished he had said Williams was a 
man ; that he would trust Williams. 

“If you hate him, you devil-born snake, he is my 
friend. He can have my ships, my money, my land, my 
island. 

“Wipe out any of my score with you! I’ve lived 
wickedly as I could just to be sure of hell, where I can 
rake coals over you, you black-hearted, double-tongued, 
venomous spider. 

“Williams — I’m going to make Williams my friend so 
there will be something more than old ruffian black- 
birders and Portuguese to look after Dakaru when I’m 
dead !” 

Afterward I found my hands were cramped — so 
tightly I had gripped, hanging on, the foot of the bed. 

I remember assuring myself in the pause after 
Grahame stopped that it wasn’t so — none of it — nothing 
of it, possibly except the rum, which was Jamaican in 
flavor and always treacherous. 

Also, part of the time the room swayed and heaved 
like a ship in long swells. And though everything 
seemed to be taking place at a distance, a great distance 


3 t 6 


WILD BLOOD 


off, as things do on the stage or in dreams, I saw and 
heard perfectly. The trouble was that I couldn’t be 
sure that it happened just as I saw it. There are times 
when a man isn’t sure of the things he sees and hears. 
I stared hard and saw clearly, but the picture was 
jumbled and for a little while not believable. 

Why should Grahame have thrown himself back, his 
body writhing under the brown-stained coverlet, his lean 
fingers tearing at his breast, and his face twisted as if 
fighting with somebody, when nobody had touched him? 

Dula swiftly reached him — and I gasped. But she 
did not strike. There was no knife in her hands. She 
talked to him rapidly. She was not angry. 

It was hard to catch what she said, for Eunice was 
crying, with her eyes open; and sobbing something too. 
The innocent are always helpless in the midst of evil, 
being truly meant for Heaven rather than for earth. She 
stood twisting her slender, transparent fingers, almost 
choking herself with : 

“Poor, poor father! What is wrong? Oh, dear 
Godr 

Davenant was motionless; and there seemed to be 
nothing to him but eyes — like a basilisk, a basilisk that 
had been in some way terribly surprised and angered. 
I once saw a madman, and his eyes were like that; only 
Davenant’s did not roll or move. Just glared. 

From a long way off there were shouts, indistinct, 
excited. I thought at first that it was Carp Taylor 
shouting, and that his voice in some weird way was 
barely reaching me. He had Davenant’s arm. Both 
hands were on Davenant’s arm. 

When I understood his words at all tliey were close 
enough, though a little muffled by his beard and thick 


WILD BLOOD 


3 1 T 

tongue and the effort not to have what he said go beyond 
Davenant’s ears. But Taylor was agitated. 

“Bide your time. We’ll get ’im. Grahame? He’s 
drunk an’ crazy. ’Nother spell of his heart.” 

People were excited away off some place. The shouts 
came faintly. I heard because my ears in a kind of 
trance-like daze were straining to catch words from 
wherever they fell. 

“Father ” 

That was not Eunice’s voice. 

I leaned swayingly over the bed. 

“ — I am sorry — I am sorry. Oh, God, how I have 
thought wrong of you!” 

Grahame was lying back, quiet now. His trembling 
arms lifted with effort toward Dula’s low-bent face. 
But her face was too far away — probably swimming in 
the distance before his dulled eyes. He was breathing 
with his mouth open, heavily, wearily. 

Dula put her hands to his face, but his jaw fell away 
again. She stroked his forehead and cheeks, and when 
her hands were withdrawn his eyes were closed and his 
mouth, too. 

“Sh-h,” said Dula to Eunice, who was about to throw 
herself across the bed, weeping. “He’s asleep.” 

I came out of my trance-like condition with a start. 
My hair stood up, or tried to. The rest of me could not 
move. 

Davenant, on his way toward the door, for the first 
time seemed to notice me. His were at that moment the 
eyes that petrify. His bearded lips curled back. The 
clenched white teeth showed in a grimace meant for a 
smile. 


318 WILD BLOOD 

“I’ll kill you — now!” he hissed in a fearful, low, 
almost confidential whisper. 

His hand struck down to his belt, but it did not come 
out with a knife. The door opened in his face, and Hur- 
ricane Williams stood in the doorway. I won’t be more 
glad to see the angel that comes down into hell with my 
pardon written in mother’s tears, signed by God. 

Now it was one thing for a man to say that he 
couldn’t rest or sleep or eat, or anything like that, until 
Williams was dead. It was another and very different 
thing to stand to his face and try to kill him. Practically 
all the blows ever struck at Williams came from behind. 

His face was hard then, even harder, more severe 
in line and bronze-like, than was usual. His eyes could 
outstare a basilisk. 

Davenant drew back unsteadily. Williams gave him 
no more than a glance. No more than a glance went to 
Carp Taylor. His eyes paused on my face, and burned ; 
I was drunk again. 

Carp Taylor plucked Davenant by the arm, and they 
went out. 

Williams looked at Dula, then at Grahame, then at 
Dula and said : 

“You had better wake him. The Friedrich is in the 
offing.” 

That was how we were trapped at Dakaru. The 
Friedrich had cannon, steam and fourscore men there- 
abouts. There was no escaping her. 

Captain Lumholtz had stopped at Apia and displayed 
his prisoner. He was indubitably recognized as nothing 
like Hurricane Williams. So Shaylor’s version of the 
story was at last really believed. 

Captain Lumholtz, furious, returned to Lelela. The 


WILD BLOOD 


3i9 

Sally Martin had gone. There was a set-to with the 
natives. Much of the village was burned. European 
chancelleries eventually heard that there had been a native 
war at Lelela, and that sailors from the Friedrich landed 
to protect German interests. It was the usual explana- 
tion — only the agitation started at Lelela led some years 
later to real native wars. The upshot of the affair was 
that the Germans with a combination of cunning and 
bluff ultimately secured possession of both Upolu and 
Savaii — the richest and largest islands. 

The Friedrich had hastened on toward Dakaru, struck 
the southern tip of the island and come north along the 
coast to Grahame’s harbor. That was how she chanced 
to be almost on top of Williams before being seen. 

“The gunboat !” Dula exclaimed in a low voice, 
coming anxiously toward him. 

Williams’s eyes met hers, and in hers were alarm, 
tenderness, a caressing anxiety. 

“Can you get away ?” she asked breathlessly. 

At the same time she was very close to him and made 
a little gesture as if to put her hands on him. Then she 
drew them back. I don’t think she noticed at all what 
she was doing with her hands. The urge to touch him 
was strong. For that one moment the urge was repressed 
by the forces of hesitancy that dwell in women to keep 
them modest, or what is thought to be modest. 

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes very narrow. 

It was too late to try to take out a ship. Besides the 
Friedrich had steam. May the curse of all good deep- 
water seamen fall on him who first put boilers into ships 
and gave a brute with a shovel place over bold sailormen 
who straddle the yard and grip the leech. 

“Wake him,” Williams said. “He ought to meet her. 


320 


WILD BLOOD 


The German is wild. I’m taking to the hills. I came for 
McGuire.” 

“Watch out for Davenant! Oh, please! But he” — 
she put her hand toward Grahame ; her eyes did not leave 
Williams’s face — “he was magnificent! He said ” 

The boom of guns, reverberantly crashing, came upon 
us. The Germans, right at the mouth of the harbor, had 
sent a broadside into the Sally Martin. She was deserted. 
There was no reason for the broadside except that the 
Friedrich was very angry with her and had cannon. The 
poor Sally Martin was sadly shattered between wind and 
water. 

Williams turned abruptly. “Come, McGuire.” 

I moved a little unsteadily. I could walk all right, 
but probably from standing still so long my feet had 
grown a bit awkward. 

Eunice, with her hands to her ears, collapsed trem- 
bling into a chair. 

Dula caught at Williams’s arm. 

Then there was revealed the woman within her, that 
mystic woman that had seemed to lurk under the black 
cloak, lined with crimson ; that had nestled in the shadows 
behind the curtains of eyes, dark and impenetrable. How 
scant the line between crime and love ; and often the line 
is erased. Her potentiality for either was great. It takes 
something of the recklessness of crime for a woman to 
break through the instinctive hesitancy of her sex and 
speak as Dula spoke — of love, to Hurricane Williams. 
I knew her; with an inner sheltered vanity I felt that I 
knew her as no man alive knew her; and I was not 
surprised at the way she spoke. 

From that night in the shack at Turkee when I, 
drunk, had thrust a wavering candle to her face and 


WILD BLOOD 


321 


stood fascinated, I had not doubted that she would do 
whatever she wanted to do; and her love of Hurricane 
Williams had not been hidden. She would leave no way 
for him to be unaware of it. She even had had me con- 
fess for her to murder; which was scarcely less daring 
than the deed itself. Somehow both deed and vicarious 
confession seemed far from her at that hour; as far 
removed as the chill, Satanic beauty that had thrilled me 
shiveringly in the flickering candlelight, when I first saw 
her. Beauty she now had, too; but it was softer, not 
cruel. Her face was suffused with an anxious 
tenderness. 

How when a leopard can not change his spots can 
woman so change? It may be that within them they do 
not change, but only cast off cloaks, draw back curtains. 
The hearts of all of them perhaps are as the alabaster 
box broken above the head of Christ. I doubt not but 
that He who knows all things, knows the inmost hearts 
of the wicked and loves them for what they might be if 
ever their hearts were struck open, as was the alabaster 
box of precious ointment of spikenard. 

“Whom else,” I have asked bitterly of myself, “but 
some man fierce and stern could have struck fire from 
her — taught in the nursery to kiss a knife over which 
curses had been said ?” 

The very iron and flinty mold that gave her disturbing 
fear lest he could not be moved, made her love him. And 
now her hour had come for speaking out, even to his 
face. Some psychic sense may have warned her that 
what is put off to the morrow may not always be done. 
Perhaps too the great fear that his last chance of escape 
from Dakaru was utterly lost increased the eager tension 
to have done with doubts. 


3 22 


WILD BLOOD 


Her face, its strange irregular outline framed by the 
downward coils of hair, so black as to have something of 
a raven’s sheen, was aglow with daring as she looked up 
and said with sweet and low inflections, clear but almost 
whispering : 

“I love you, Hurricane Williams. Am I without 
shame for having told you in a hundred ways? And 
now I use the words : I love you. Something made me 
nearly love you when I first heard of you. And you 
were so like what I wanted you to be when I first saw 
you — so unlike what I had feared, Hurricane Williams. 

“I love the very name! Oh, I shall blush to remem- 
ber this minute, but I shall blush without shame. I 
love you — I love you — I love you ! And oh, I am afraid 
for you ! 

“Gra — my father — he is my father! — he was won- 
derful. All the prayers of all the saints can not relieve 
me of my sorrow for the way I hated him. I will waken 
him. He’s worn out. He will help you no matter what.” 

I hated Hurricane Williams at that moment. I could 
have forgiven him — and her too — if he had swept her 
into his arms. I don’t know what I would have for- 
given them for; but there would have been forgiveness 
anyhow. He did not fling her away — there would never 
have been forgiveness then. But he was like a man 
fleshed with bronze. He scarcely moved. He did not 
turn from her. He did not draw his arm away. 

He looked from her to Grahame. His eyes paused 
steadily, searchingly, on Grahame’s face and seemed to 
be looking far beyond the death-like mask of the man 
that lay there. 

With the nearest thing to softness that ever came into 
his voice he said, interrupting her : 


[WILD BLOOD 


323 


“No. Don’t try to waken him. That will be best 
Let him sleep — sleep.” 

He stopped, but he had not finished. Dula, as she had 
said, shameless, had her hands on his breast. She stood 
close to him and waited, her cheeks on fire, her eyes 
brightly eager. 

“First there must be a fight out there.” He motioned 
slightly. “Then I will come back.” 

“You will come back to me?” she whispered. Her 
hands reached caressingly to his burned, leathern face. 

“I will come back,” he repeated evenly. 

She did not seem to notice what little that really prom- 
ised. She saw only the promise, and read it by the flame 
of her desire. 

“Kiss me ! Kiss me ! Oh, kiss me and kill me. . . . 
That’s how I love you!” She put his unresisting arm 
around her and with tiptoed tenseness, her dark eyes 
burning hungrily, reached up — waiting — to him. 

Then the rattle of rifles, shouts, cries. He turned 
from her as if snapped by a spring. 

“McGuire!” 

His hand caught my shoulder. I was almost flung 
through the door; and it closed on something like a sob 
— as a woman of great thirst might sob when she pressed 
lips to a glass, suddenly empty. 

I hung back stubbornly, his hand on my wrist grip- 
ping like a manacle, riveted. 

“Stop till I tell you, Skipper. I’m not drunk — I’ve 
Heard things. What’s an old gunboat and Germans! 
Listen to me. Grahame ” 

The way he said it left no doubt. The way he knew 
I never thought. The words fell slowly — “Grahame is 
dead.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


DEATH GALLOPS BY WITH HANDS OUTSTRETCHED 

' I 'HE Germans were coming ashore ; two boat-loads of 
* them. 

The half dozen Portuguese were excitedly firing at 
the blacks, a party of whom, scenting trouble, began it. 
They defiantly ran away and refused orders. They had 
learned that Hurricane Williams was on the island. 

So potent was his name that even cannibals who had 
never seen a white man knew of him. Stories filter and 
spread through the islands’ bush. The blacks probably 
thought he had come to set them loose, and a party im- 
patiently precipitated their freedom by loosening them- 
selves. Others joined. The blacks were in rebellion. 

The Portuguese were excited. Blood-hounds had 
been set on the natives. One had been killed — one dog, 
I mean. Several natives were shot. Stones and clubs 
and tools had driven the other dogs back. 

The blacks, with yells of triumph, were bearing the 
dead dog off for a feast. No doubt they would have 
much preferred to have a Portuguese. 

A third boat, loaded, was leaving the Friedrich. 

The white men from off the Sally Martin slouched 
dispiritedly down on the landing. They had not been 
given arms. They were not given arms. 

Hawkins was with Malua and the Samoans, who, 
grouped under the trees, were at a strategic point be- 
tween the landing and the walled garden. 

32 4 


.WILD blood 


325 


There was a disturbing uneasiness within me, and no 
hope. Williams, I told myself, did not have a chance. 
Numbers were against him. The sea was closed to him. 
Dakaru was too small an island to hide out on success- 
fully. And men he couldn’t trust were all about him. 

The blacks, now amuck, might chant his praise in 
their feast-dance ; and they might also try to use him for 
the feast. Possibly not; but all that afternoon my heart 
sagged, and I thought thoughts that made me sorry for 
things it was too late to mend. And I made vows, more 
or less feelingly designed to tempt the Lord to spare 
me. He did so. But the Lord is all-wise, and He 
knew anyhow that I could never keep my vows. 

“I seen Carp Taylor talkin’ to ’em — ” Hawkins mo- 
tioned toward the Portuguese, who, bunched together, 
now shot rapidly at the blacks far out of range and now 
turned to watch the oncoming boats. 

“I seen him pointin’ up there, too.” He indicated the 
house from which Williams and I had just come. 

“1 yelled at ’im: 

“ 'What you doin’, you old ? Hirin’ ’em to 

shoot us in the back, you old ?’ ” 

And regarding Carp Taylor Hawkins confided with 
me. "All I got ’o say is I hope somethin’ happens ’at 
gives him a good excuse for gettin’ hurt, bad.” 

Williams had conveyed to Hawkins, to Malua, to all 
of them, that there would be more trouble than they 
wanted if any of them quarreled or shot before he 
thought there was need of it. 

Carp Taylor and Davenant were down near the land- 
ing. Williams started down. 

I still tagged along, trying to tell him what I had 
learned in Grahame’s room and breaking the story up, 


326 


WILD BLOOD 


perhaps incoherently. But he listened, though he did not 
seem to. There had been so much else to tell that I do 
not believe I got in all my evidence against Carp Taylor. 

Williams went toward the landing. By the time he 
could get there the Germans would be almost within 
rifle-shot, for he went out of his way to pass the Portu- 
guese. 

They stopped firing. They stopped looking at Ger- 
mans, too, as he came near. 

He went up to the mean fellow, apparently the over- 
seer, that had met me when I came ashore. 

Without warning, without explanation, Williams 
said : “Drop those guns.” 

Five faces stared at him in sullen stupidity. The 
overseer sneered and jerked up the muzzle of his rifle 
threateningly — though perhaps defensively. 

He started to say something with oaths in it, and 
Williams killed him. With his left hand Williams caught 
the barrel of the rifle. With the blow of his right hand 
a knife flashed. That was all, except that he wheeled, 
the gun club-like in one hand and the knife, its sheen 
reddened, in the other. 

“Drop them!” he said, not loudly but with sudden 
tense fury, meaning it — meaning multifold times more 
than his words : and showing what he meant by the glare 
of his eyes, the strange poise of his body that appeared 
to be leaning against an invisible leash. 

The rifles fell. 

“Go over there — any place;” he made a short impa- 
tient gesture. 

Five men shuffled off, their faces almost between 
their shoulders, staring in dull fear — as such stupid fel- 
lows might stare at the devil who cast them away, not 


WILD BLOOD 


327 

thinking they were worth the coal it would take to make 
them squirm ; perhaps aware that if they were melted 
down they would have no souls. 

Our party did not lack for rifles. Two Samoans 
came down and smashed these. Williams bent across 
his knee the one he held, threw it aside, and went on. I 
stumbled along after him. 

Carp Taylor was saying: 

“Now le’s look here, Mr. Williams ” 

Williams looked toward him, and confusion descend- 
ed upon Carp Taylor’s thick tongue. 

Williams had come to the landing and seemingly ig- 
nored Taylor and Davenant, whom he passed close by as 
he approached the Sally Martin's men. But I knew by 
the merest tilt of his head that he had not been ignoring 
them. It wouldn’t take much to cause me to say that he 
had hoped either or both of them would make a move. 
Surely he expected it. Perhaps they knew that he did. 

He had said to his uneasy crew that they could do as 
they pleased — come with him, or face the Germans with 
uplifted arms and the best explanation that suggested 
itself to tell why they had let Captain Lumholtz be im- 
posed upon at Lelela. 

Cockney George shifted about from one foot to the 
other indecisive; Raulson came near to yielding to his 
impulse ; but only Raikes, little rat of a fellow, his one eye 
glistening, stepped out. Williams’s glance swept him 
from the feet to the one eye. 

“All right, Raikes,” he said indifferently and jerked a 
thumb toward me. 

Raikes came and stood by me. Nervously, with 
something of an air of apology, he said : 


328 


WILD BLOOD 


“I guess hell ain’t far off — but I don’t want ’o go 
from no Dutch yard-arm. An’ I never meant Hawkins 
no harm, er you. ’Cept at Lelela — an’ I was drunk. 
'Say, what was the matter with them guns that time?” 

Just then Carp Taylor had stepped up and called 
'Hurricane Williams Mr. Williams. 

What Taylor was trying to do without giving offense 
was to point out that Williams did not have even the re- 
motest of a fighting chance. About all he succeeded in 
doing, in his watchfulness against giving offense, was to 
protest that he would do anything on earth to help Will- 
iams. His idea of helping was to stay there and inter- 
cede with the Germans. 

“And you?” 

Williams abruptly drove the question at Davenant. 

Davenant’s forehead swiftly became red; and I sup- 
pose his face flushed. It was not easy to be sure through 
the blackness of his beard. 

His manner was unflustered, but what could he say? 
Unless he were exceedingly cautious he might not live to 
see Williams outnumbered, hemmed in and caught. 

Taylor had no doubt told him some things about 
Williams’s reputation, and how it was scarcely exag- 
gerated ; and he had seen what happened up the beach 
among the Portuguese. So he was, though he did not 
greatly show it, afraid of that tigerish figure. In empty 
tones he said: 

“I’ve misjudged you. My quarrel is with Grahame. 
When the Germans get here I’ll tell them you ” 

Davenant was making a strong but rather late effort 
to play his favorite role of friend to one whom he 
wished damned. 

I have sometimes suspected Williams of humor, 


WILD BLOOD 


329 


though he never laughed. In few words and short sen- 
tences, a bit ambiguous, he said no. It would be danger- 
ous for them to meet the Germans. They should come 
with him. He would watch over them. The Germans 
were likely to be waspishly angry. 

Davenant, very erect, and Carp Taylor, shambling 
dejectedly, moved along the landing and up toward the 
trees, where the little party watched the coming of six 
times their number. 

The Germans landed. To attack they would have to 
rush across some three hundred yards of open ground. 
Off to the right the blacks, their yells mingled with the 
howls of dogs that persisted in threatening the savages, 
must have caused Captain Lumholtz, whose dumpy fig- 
ure could be plainly seen — Red Shaylor was with him — to 
wonder if a host of wild men could not be moved against 
him. The Germans quickly and roughly took in hand 
the Sally Martin’s men; but they showed no eagerness to 
get far from their boats. 

That was really good judgment. Lumholtz knew 
nothing of the lay of Dakaru — a difficulty that would 
presently be overcome by flanking, scouting and skir- 
mishing. 

The Sally Martin’s men would perhaps readily if not 
eagerly show willingness to tell him how few were in 
Williams’s party. The Portuguese, who had moved off 
down the beach, no doubt helplessly wondering what had 
become of Grahame, would soon be offering him infor- 
mation. 

Hawkins did not notice the Germans. His eyes were 
at Carp Taylor’s back; but he kept up a monotone of 
rumbling abuse at Taylor, who was uncomfortably try- 
ing not to appear to be paying attention. He made many 


330 


WILD BLOOD 


harsh remarks about Taylor’s progenitors, his courage, 
his honesty, his personal appearance, his hopes of Heaven. 
Williams told him to shut up, not with words, but with a 
tap, a blow on the shoulder and a glance. 

In what Hawkins thought was a whisper he com- 
plained to me of the sad fate which made his big body a 
bulwark so to speak, and certainly a German target, for 
that vicious, treacherous, dirty, cowardly nigger-stealer. 

“An/ Red-Top,” he said with strained accents of woe, 
“I got scars on my back yet !” 

A man with a white flag on a rifle-barrel left the 
Germans and came up from the beach toward us. 

Carp Taylor said that he would go down and meet 
him and find out what the thrice-doubly-cursed Germans 
wanted. 

“The two of us,” Williams answered, dropping his 
revolver into my hand as he stood up from where he 
had been squatting like a native. 

“G’ory hell,” said Raikes shrilly, “them Dutchers’ll 
pot ’im!” 

Of course I can tell only what I saw, and it happened 
at a distance — almost two hundred yards away. The 
bearer of the white flag seemed a little uneasy at two 
men coming, and he stopped short of half-way. 

Williams and Taylor went down to him. Presently 
there was a puff of smoke and a report from the rifle 
which bore the white flag. But the rifle was pointed 
skyward. Williams, himself unarmed except for a knife, 
knew something of how forgetful people could be when 
keeping even a truce with him ; and he had made the 
man pull the trigger just to see what happened. 

I do not believe treachery was intended. The mes- 
senger seems to have been sent out to impress Grahame — • 


WILD BLOOD 


331 


probably he mistook Carp Taylor for Grahame — and 
carried word that it would be futile and dangerous to 
harbor Hurricane Williams. Perhaps the fellow, selected 
because he could speak English pretty well, exaggerated 
with cunning intent the punishment that had come upon 
Lelela, suggesting, if not threatening, something similar 
for Dakaru. 

What Williams answered I do not know. He might 
repeat words some one else had said, but he would never 
quote himself. 

What sign or gesture or glance may have passed be- 
tween the messenger and Carp Taylor would be impossi- 
ble to say — and what happened was over almost before 
we could move a foot. For one of the few times in his 
life Williams was probably caught unaware, unprepared. 
Carp Taylor jumped his back, pinning his arms, at the 
same time bellowing for help. He needed it. 

The man with the white flag took a moment too long 
to reverse his rifle and lift it as a club; for before he 
struck, Carp Taylor lay twisting, awkward even in 
death, on the sand with a knife buried in his belly. Will- 
iams crouched, awaiting the fall of the blow. 

The blow did not fall. The man stumbled backward, 
frantically reversing his rifle again and getting under 
the sanctuary of his white flag. 

I saw Williams’s arm go out in a gesture. He was 
sending the man back to the Germans on the beach. 

Williams turned and came rapidly but unhurriedly 
toward us. He did not glance behind him. From where 
we were we could see all of the Germans staring, almost 
gaping, at him. They too had heard of the quickness 
and savagery of Hurricane Williams, and were some- 
what impressed by what they had seen. 


332 


WILD BLOOD 


However, they respected their own flag. No shots 
were fired. 

As he came up the eyes of all of us were upon his 
face. “Lelela’s burned. Taulemeito’s killed,” he said, 
and nothing more, but the gesture backward toward the 
beach told by whom. 

Raikes cursed feverishly. Hawkins’s big lumpish face 
wore an almost ludicrous expression of rage and pain. 
Lelela had been the nearest to Heaven that men such as 
he and I could hope for. 

Samoans are emotional as children except at times 
when emotion is expected. Those of pride, and few of 
them in the early days were without it — they have since 
been civilized — are stoical in shame and tragedy. For 
some moments their faces were strained resolutely. 
They were silent. Then Malua, as if to be done with the 
mockery of stoicism, flung up his rifle and yelled to the 
Germans — demanding why they delayed in coming to 
meet their death. 

The cannibals in the distance caught up the yell and 
redoubled it. The other Samoans, brandishing rifles, 
cried their anger. Dakaru seemed the home of fiends. 

The Germans, though they intended to do something 
all right, were still undecided. All the time in the world 
was theirs. Williams was cut off from the sea. 

Officers were talking with Portuguese and pointing 
this way and that. Nobody was to slip through their 
fingers at Dakaru. 

Williams had looked about two or three times before 
he asked where Davenant had gone. 

Raikes spoke up, saying he had seen Davenant just 
edging off a while before toward the house. Williams 
looked toward the beach, then steadily toward the house. 


WILD BLOOD 


333 


“McGuire,” he said. 

I left the tree-trunk against which I was leaning and 
followed him. 

He went rapidly up the road and through the grilled 
gates. I have often thought that he must have had a 
sense of danger that more or less served him at all times. 

In the grounds we met Laulai and Nolopu running 
with horror on their faces. They were wildly seeking 
help. I don’t know what they said or tried to say. Cries 
reached us from inside the house and told all that my 
ears could hear. 

We leaped into the hall and ran with something like 
barefoot noiselessness down the matted floor. 

“You shall not touch him Don’t Don’t! 

You shall not! Oh, God! I’ll kill 

you You ! Oh, oh ! Awh-o ! ” 

We were through the open door and into the room. 

Williams stopped short and stood still. He, whose 
way it was to strike before a breath could be drawn, 
stopped motionless. But his body was braced in that 
strange poise from which he could move with a swiftness, 
a force incredible. 

We had come too late — or rather he had come too 
late, for I never felt more helpless, more worthless, 
more bitterly meager — to stay the hand of Davenant. 

Though there was much else to see, to notice, to hor- 
rify, I saw that his hand held the knife that belonged to 
Dula; and that vibrantly shocked me. That seemed 
wanton irony, malicious, on the part of God — for Dula, 
breast upward, arms outflung, lay backward across the 
bed — across the form of Grahame. She had not known 
how unwakable his sleep, and had died defending his 
death-chilled body from a knife-thrust. 


334 


WILD BLOOD 


Eunice crouched on the floor, moaning. The side of 
her delicate face was blackened by a blow. She was not 
yet out of her daze. 

And Hurricane Williams made no move. Like a 
statue he stood, a statue with living eyes. His eyes were 
on Davenant. 

A red stain appeared on the coverlet, and grew and 
grew, reaching out with crimson figuration as if crypti- 
cally writing in blood some message that explained it all. 

Dula’s face was in repose, as the faces often are of 
those who die, even violently, in a way worthy of God’s 
mercy. 

And Hurricane Williams stood motionless. 

I don’t know what Davenant thought or felt, though 
I stared at him. I will not say that he showed great ter- 
ror. Perhaps his terror was too great to be shown; or 
maybe he was nerved by fear. He was afraid ; and it 
was not because two men had come. I am sure of that, 
for all Davenant saw was Williams’s face. 

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was made ex- 
cept the muffled sobbing of Eunice, who had fallen 
forward, and except the slow drip- drip-drip from the 
edge of the bed. 

And yet Williams made no move. 

In a sort of hypnotic terror I edged leaningly for- 
ward and looked into his face. Great God! He was 
smiling. If the line on those closed, twisted lips could 
possibly have been anything else I would not call it a 
smile. That interminable waiting, that implacable slow- 
ness, that steady glare of eyes, that smile like a gro- 
tesque crack that had come by some hard blow into the 
face of a figure of bronze, at last made Davenant flinch. 
He took a slow step backward. 


WILD BLOOD 


335 


Then Williams moved slightly forward. His hands 
were empty. 

Davenant, no doubt unconsciously, edged backward 
again and turned his wrist, putting the knife in a posi- 
tion to lunge, to thrust straight out, fencer-like. The 
straight thrust is a difficult blow to evade; the most 
deadly in a skilled hand. 

Williams, inch by inch, went on. 

He was not moving warily, but by some queer re- 
versal of his character was drawing out the ritual of 
death-dealing. I was to remember afterward that it was 
the first time I had ever seen Hurricane Williams venge- 
ful. All other times had been fights to have work done 
or life saved. 

And by one of the enigmatic twists of his brain he 
did not seem to hold malice against any person that 
struck merely at his life. Maybe when one has dropped, 
neck-bound, through a gallows trap one learns the 
strange wisdom of the dead, which is to have no bitter- 
ness about ousting the soul from its house of clay unless 
that soul belong to some one dearly regarded. 

Inch by inch he moved. 

Davenant’s hand trembled, but the hands of men of 
great courage may tremble as the fight’s beginning is de- 
layed. But he moved backward till he could go no far- 
ther. He was against the wall. He drew himself closely 
against it. I will not say that he shrank against it. But 
when he felt the wall to his back and knew retreat was 
over, a sudden look much like a gleam of terror spread 
out in his eyes. Yet he was a man as full of evilness and 
wicked deeds as the devil could wish, and the devil 
must have sustained him with something akin to hope; 
for he did not break. 


33 ^ 


WILD BLOOD 


Williams, implacably, almost imperceptibly, leaned 
nearer, closer. 

Davenant had bared his teeth the better to breathe. 
They gleamed, but there was no deadly white smile 
about it. They were clenched — but shook a little. 

The end came; Davenant took a strainedly deep 
breath and lunged, his arm outthrust. 

Williams, empty-handed, was not an arm’s length 
away, and — I can’t tell how it happened. I can tell only 
what was done. All was over in less time than a thim- 
bleful of sand would trickle through one’s fingers. 

Across Williams’s shoulder I saw the mingling of in- 
credulous surprise and agony on Davenant’s face and 
heard the snap of his broken forearm. Williams had 
caught his wrist, twisted the arm over — inside of the 
wrist up — and broke it at the elbow as he might have 
broken a stick. 

On that instant his hands, almost too swift to be 
seen, reached Davenant’s head and caught it vise-like— 
a hand to the chin, a hand gripping the back of his head. 
Rising to tiptoes, Williams bent back the head, jerked 
sidewise with the full weight of his strength ; and the 
neck snapped — a dull, sickening crack. It had happened 
so suddenly that not even frightened lips could have 
formed themselves for prayer. 

Williams threw the body from him, threw it by the 
grip he still had on the head. The body fell across the 
chest. Jerking, flopping, it lay across the chest where 
there were many bottles of strong Jamaica rum — all the 
treasure of Grahame’s that Davenant had come seeking 
as profit for his vengeance. 

With hands to eyes I stumbled from the room, shud- 
dering. 


CHAPTER XVII 


REST — REST FOR THE WAYWARD AND PASSION-WORN 

|\/fY STORY is told. Other things happened, of 
* * * course ; and there was much fighting ; many people 
died. Hurricane Williams again took the web out of the 
hands of the Fates and snarled it up to serve his own 
ends. Luck did not help him. 

If Captain Lumholtz and his officers had not, as 
naval officers were always eager to do, stayed on shore 
and taken up quarters in Grahame’s house, Williams 
would, I believe, have boarded the gunboat. And who 
shall say that he would have failed? Not I. He never 
failed where the risk of his own life and his inordinate 
daring could win. 

Certainly the Germans, skirmishing upward from 
the beach, driving us back, almost outflanking our few 
numbers, had reason to believe themselves as safe be- 
hind the walls of Grahame’s garden as on their own 
ship. 

How many of them died that afternoon I do not 
know. That night they were bunched at the gates, and 
they patrolled the grounds and surrounded the house 
while their officers dined well and drank. 

The Friedrich came in close to the landing so her 
guns covered the beach between the house and the water. 
All was safe as intelligent precaution could make it. 

We drew back late that afternoon, firing as we went. 

337 


338 


WILD BLOOD 


On- the morrow we could expect to be hunted down, 
crushed out by weight of numbers. Our little party was 
thinned. When night came two Samoans had been 
killed, another wounded. And that was not all. 

Hawkins had an arm made useless and cursed his 
thigh, where another bullet lay in the flesh so that he 
could hardly drag himself. But drag himself he did. 
Whenever he could find prop or rest he shot with his 
one hand. He enviously damned me because I was too 
thin, he said, to be a target. 

He had the stuff within him that doesn’t give way. 
He fought as hard as he could, though one arm was use- 
less and a leg was worse than useless. Though he ex- 
pected, as I did too, death and hell on the morrow, he 
jeered at the men he shot, cursed those he missed. 

Requiescat in pace; may he rest in peace. The snow- 
fall of years since then has buried him. 

Raikes died. Shaylor and a half dozen skirmishers 
came almost upon our rear. For seconds the fighting 
was hand to hand. Whether Raikes, with a sudden gal- 
lantry leaped to take the blow of the cutlas that came at 
Williams or sprang blindly away from the swipe of a 
rifle at his own head and dodged into the cutlas, I shall 
not try to say. He died like a hero in that his life saved 
probably the life of another. No doubt in the Great 
Judgment-Hall God won’t be too inquisitive about what 
was courage and what was cowardice. Anyway Haw- 
kins pronounced a blessing, a blessing though well filled 
with oaths, over the little twisted body, its head sliced, 
the one eye opened still with a kind of impudent stare. 
Perhaps as life fled that one eye caught a glimpse of the 
mysteries into which the dead go, and was unimpressed. 

I thought that Shaylor died. I shot him. Hawkins, 


WILD BLOOD 


339 


having two good arms then, threw a rifle hurtling and 
hit him — and nearly hit Williams, too. Williams, turn- 
ing with his rifle club-like, smote Shaylor; then stooped 
and picked the cutlas from his hand. 

I did not see Shaylor move again. But some years 
afterward I heard of a Red Shaylor, a seaman, a big fel- 
low, muchly scarred from temple to chest. Perhaps the 
Fates, wholly unaware that Williams had snatched him 
from the sea when the Roanoke sank, had made no fur- 
ther provision for Shaylor’s death, so that he went on 
living, living, living, indefinitely. 

Night came and we rested. That is, Hawkins and I 
rested. I felt futile, akin to disgrace, because 1 did not 
have a scratch on my body. It was as if the people who 
had fought with us did not think me worthy of even a 
blow, of the waste of time it took to put a bead on to a 
rifle. 

Williams rested not at all ; and the Samoans lay out in 
the darkness, watching. He went alone through the 
blackness to the cannibals ; and before he came back a full 
moon raised itself in the cloudless sky as if pale with 
horror at the things men do. 

How he met, and what he said to that pack of canni- 
bals I do not know ; but it probably had something to do 
with the renewed terrific din and clamor they set up. 
They slipped down through the groves and burned the 
outbuildings; they danced and shrieked in the far-flung 
glare of the fires and dashed leapingly through the 
moonlight from shadow to shadow. 

But they remained in the same whereabouts. They 
did not attack anybody, though the Germans at first were 
alarmed and fired at them, but did not move out to come 
well within the range. 


340 


WILD BLOOD 


The fear in the Germans quieted somewhat, but not 
the noise; and the sailors watched, fascinated. They 
grouped themselves to look from a comfortable distance, 
on that sight ; and many of those stationed on guard and 
patrol gave their attention chiefly to staring in the direc- 
tion of the cannibals, who kept tirelessly at their spec- 
tacle. 

Then Williams and Malua and six Samoans went 
down to the wall about Grahame’s house; and some in- 
attentive sentries found their throats crushed strangling- 
ly. Perhaps more of them died than would have, had 
not the man with the white flag lied when he told that 
Taulemeito was dead. 

The entrances were choked with guards. Patrols — 
maybe — evaded in the shadows and from behind bushes ; 
and doors are not the only means of entering a large, 
rambling house banked with shrubs and vines. Win- 
dows in hot countries are always wide, and netting 
screen is easily cut. 

Captain Lumholtz had dined well with two of his 
officers; and they drank — drank so much that perhaps 
they did not believe their eyes when dark figures began 
to materialize within the shadows at the outer edge of 
the lamps in the large room. Anyway it was true — what 
their eyes told them ; and Captain Lumholtz and his next 
in command respected the order for silence, as well- 
trained officers should. 

Their younger and more impulsive companion leaped 
up. No doubt he felt, a little alcoholically, that there are 
times when it is better to die than to keep still. 

He died, and without breaking the silence, Hurri- 
cane Williams, as if going from a spring-board, caught 


WILD BLOOD 


34i 


Him — Hands to throat — and one of the Samoans struck 
across his head. 

Later the officer of the guard came in to report. And 
he did not go out. He too stayed to sit in meditative si- 
lence and await the morning. 

With the dawn Laulai and Nopolu, sent by Will- 
iams, came searching for us. And we, with Hawkins 
leaning heavily on the three of us, and a sapling crutch 
as well — his leg stiff but his heart high — went down 
among the baffled, glowering sailors of the Friedrich. 

Orders were orders even in those days to Germans 
in uniform ; and Captain Lumholtz dearly loved his stout 
pudgy body and the life that dwelt in that dumpy habi- 
tation. His fellow officers shared a similar affection for 
themselves. They were much pained because Hurricane 
Williams would not take their words to let him sail un- 
molested from Dakaru. 

He said that he would kill them the moment he or 
any of his party was attacked; that he would kill them 
the instant they refused to carry out his orders. And 
they believed him. 

It is true the sailors did not realize until too late to 
have done anything courageous — though mutinous — 
just what the situation was. Group after group was 
called into the house and ordered by their own captain to 
lay down their arms. Every last man remaining on the 
Friedrich was called off, together with the astonished 
crew of the Sally Martin who had been put on board, 
prisoners. 

Williams had said: 

“If a shot is fired from her as the boats go out to 
board her, you die.” 

Captain Lumholtz protested, and he even might have 


34 2 


WILD BLOOD 


been willing to die had he known what was to be sent 
out in those boats. Cannibals. They boarded the unde- 
fended, the deserted gunboat and they wrecked her. 
They smashed everything that was smashable. They 
hacked the masts, but did not cut them down. That was 
too much like work. They cut the rigging — that was 
more like fun. By special instructions they went into 
the engine-room and twisted and battered everything 
that in their childish, unscientific way could be twisted 
and battered. They wrecked the Friedrich and they 
looted her. Williams was remembering Lelela and Ger- 
man vengeance there. 

It would be many long hard weeks before she could 
take the sea again. And in the dull, dry archives of the 
German Admiralty is the report that off Dakaru the 
Friedrich was disabled by a hurricane. The Germans 
are literal. 

Williams took toll of the Friedrich's pride for what 
she did, and claimed to have done, at Lelela. We went 
out in the late afternoon of that great day. It was our 
hour, our day ; it was the Friedrich's men in the Fried- 
rich's boats that warped us out. 

But we did not gO' in the Sally Martin. She was 
shattered. However, the Fijiian Maid and the smaller, 
swifter, and as stanch little Eunice were brought along- 
side of her and supplies transferred. 

Our crew worked in a kind of feverish exaltation. 
They, remembering cuffs and blows and abuse, jeered 
the Germans. 

The blacks worked too. They were going Home. 
Hurricane Williams had promised. 

The richness of Grahame’s trees and fields was raid- 
ed. Chickens and pigs fairly overran the Fijiian Maid . 


WILD BLOOD 


343 


All was Helter-skelter of course; but wliat was needed 
was put on board, and that was the thing of importance. 

And when the German sailors, sweating, furious, 
helpless, had towed us out, we who had been on the 
Sally Martin , by way of thanks and reward, gave them a 
cheer — of a kind — as we cast off. And, ungrateful to 
be alive, they answered not at all. 

Williams, on board the Fijiian Maid, and. all canvas 
out, with his cannibals and the Samoans, led the way 
westward. And we followed on the Eunice, sails short- 
ened and little to do except to talk and remember. 

As the sun fell away, burning the lazy clouds that 
banked the east, filling them with strange fires, and 
night threw up her impalpable cooling incense to foretell 
her coming, the elation of the day died out in me. Down 
in the cabin a girl of wonderful golden hair and fragile 
features — her cheek now bruised, her eyes black under- 
neath and swollen — sobbed, disconsolate, and shivered, 
though about her shoulders I had thrown a heavy black 
cloak lined with crimson. 

What the future had for her none could guess. She, 
who knew nothing of the world, least of all. 

What Williams eventually did do was to rerig and 
rename the Fijiian Maid and sell her. He gave the 
money and Eunice Grahame, together with a letter telling 
the facts, into the keeping of a wealthy young English- 
man by the name of Trevalyan, who was cruising in the 
Carolines. I heard that love at last disposed of her ill- 
fortune. Trevalyan married her. 

Hawkins, who refused to be put to bed, sat on deck 
with his arm bound across his breast and his stiff leg 
propped up. And he was silent. 

Perhaps he too was thinking of the large grave, dug 


344 


WILD BLOOD 


under the shadow of an orange-tree, where the sweef- 
scented blossoms would fall ; dug near the row of fire- 
tipped poinsettias whose burning flowers reached from 
their leafless stems like flames magically turned motion- 
less, and not far from the towering figs where the mul- 
ticolored cockatoos preened and scolded. Into that 
grave we had laid father and daughter, each wrapped 
about in clean tap pa cloth, unspotted, fragrant from the 
press of sandal-wood. 

And though there were the flat stolid faces of Ger- 
mans all about, staring, I had tried to say a prayer — 
aloud. God in His infinite wisdom knew how greatly 
those poor passion-ridden bodies were in need of long 
rest. And He knew what was in my heart. 

But only He knew what was in the heart of Hurri- 
cane Williams — though it was in keeping with his fate, 
with the irony that burned him and turned to ashes al- 
most all that he did, for him to have loved her at the mo- 
ment Davenant struck. But, his face inscrutably tense, 
he stared down into that coffinless hole where Dula lay 
by her father, and said nothing, then or afterward. 

Their faces were covered with the white cloth as if 
to offer some courteous little protection from the black, 
moist dirt that was pushed back in upon them. There 
were many new graves at Dakaru, but none were near 
enough to disturb the rest of Dula and her father. 

‘‘Look — look ! oh, look !” Hawkins cried with an 
uneasy thrill of awe as he thrust his hand toward the 
eastern sky. I looked. And there, coming through the 
clouds, was a great full moon, red as if it had been 
splashed with blood. 


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